Two new First Watch locations; Wilmington's new Salvation Army opens

Brandon Holveck and Molly McVety, Delaware News Journal
·2 min read
Apartment buildings under construction at the former College Square in Newark. The apartments are part of a mixed-use development called The Grove at Newark.
Apartment buildings under construction at the former College Square in Newark. The apartments are part of a mixed-use development called The Grove at Newark.

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🍳 Two new First Watch locations

Common area in the middle of The Grove at Newark, a mixed-use community under construction at the former College Square in Newark. This area is between the existing shops and the apartments under construction.
Common area in the middle of The Grove at Newark, a mixed-use community under construction at the former College Square in Newark. This area is between the existing shops and the apartments under construction.

Two First Watch restaurants will be opening in Delaware in the coming months. The popular brunch chain will be opening locations at the redeveloped Barley Mill Plaza in Greenville and The Grove at Newark.

The Barley Mill Plaza restaurant will open Monday, Oct. 3. The Newark location is scheduled to open in early 2023. There is already a First Watch location in Christiana on Geoffrey Drive.

First Watch will join other new retail ventures in both places. Most notably, Barley Mill Plaza will be home to Delaware’s first Wegmans. The Grove will have a variety of other restaurants, including Mexican gastropub Del Pez and fast-food chicken joint Raising Cane's, and a new apartment complex.

👕 Wilmington’s new Salvation Army now open

A new Salvation Army location opened last week on the east side of the Wilmington Riverfront near the Chase Fieldhouse.

The new location is near Salvation Army's previous Wilmington spot on South Market Street.

This project has been in the works for around one year. The $19 million, 90,000-square-foot campus features three buildings including an adult rehabilitation center, a retail store and warehouse space.

The J.C. Penney at the Christiana Mall Tuesday, May 18, 2020.
The J.C. Penney at the Christiana Mall Tuesday, May 18, 2020.

👚 Christiana Mall JCPenney sold to Washington, D.C.-area real estate groups

The JCPenney at the Christiana Mall was one of five JCPenney stores sold Monday to a joint venture between two Washington, D.C.-area real estate groups.

The Meridian Group of Bethesda, Maryland, and Martin Diamond Properties, which has offices in Washington, D.C. and New York, acquired the five stores for $53 million, according to the Meridian Group. Copper Property CTL Pass Through Trust, a real estate trust that acquired about 150 JCPenney properties as part of the retailer's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan during the pandemic, sold the stores.

JCPenney will continue to operate the stores. The other stores sold as part of the deal are in Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, Virginia; Springfield Town Center in Springfield, Virginia; The Mall in Columbia in Columbia, Maryland; and Westfield Annapolis Mall in Annapolis.

Stephen Garibaldi, senior associate of acquisition for the Meridian Group, told the Commercial Observer that the stores are in "best-in-class locations" and they expect them to outperform average brick-and-mortar shopping.

“These locations are uniquely situated in high barrier markets with strong transit that lends itself well to longer-term, retail-led, mixed-use densification,” Garibaldi said.

JCPenney has three Delaware locations: the Christiana Mall, Prices Corner shopping center and the Dover Mall.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Two new First Watch locations; Wilmington's new Salvation Army opens