The Place To Be

Big Business in Washington Township December 8, 2008

Looking around town I noticed that the amount of big stores or chain stores outweighs the amount of small or family owned stores. I took a drive throughout the township and took some pictures of some of the main shopping areas. But I’d like to start out with some banks.

The newly renamed TD bank is on the corner of Hurffville Crosskeys Road and Ganttown Road. On the corner diagonally across from it is a Wachovia bank. I couldn’t find a single small bank anywhere nearby.

Across Hurffville Crosskeys Road from the TD bank is a Rite Aid.  Then, not a 30 second drive down Ganttown Road where it intersects with Egg Harbor Road, is a Walgreens that was built last year. Previously, there had been a residence on the property. This type of land development is happening across the township at an alarming rate.

If you drive 20 seconds down Egg Harbor Road you’ll come to a large shopping center that has an Acme on one end. On the other end, there is a Starbucks. This Starbucks stands on the ground of what used to be a small, family-owned ice cream shop. There were picnic tables out front and it was popular among families during the summer. But now there’s a Starbucks and adjoining Cold Stone Creamery instead.

Elsewhere in town there are even bigger chain stores. One of them is a Lowe’s. Directly across a small side street from the Lowe’s is an Office Max. In the same complex as the Office Max is a Target. This is just one, small section of the Black Horse Pike, which is arguably the town’s main street.

A little further down the road we come to the grand daddy of big chain stores, Walmart. But this isn’t any Walmart. This is a Super Walmart.  The Super Walmart takes up one of the shopping center’s three sides.  The two big stores on the other side are Ross and Marshalls.

Is it any wonder there aren’t as many small, family owned stores as there are big chain stores? With more and more big chains opening it’s going to become even harder for local businesses to stay afloat. In this economy though, could even the big chains fail? Could this be the future of all the big shopping centers in town? Hopefully not. But at the rate township land is being bought up by big businesses and land developers, only time will tell if the investments were worth it.