Whole Foods to Open 1st NJ 365 Store

Whole Foods Market has broken ground on a small-format 365 store on the waterfront in Weehawken, N.J., the grocer’s first store under that banner in the Garden State, according to a published report.

Slated to open in fall 2018, the value-focused store, at just under 33,000 square feet, will be part of the city’s Lincoln Harbor project, a residential, office and retail complex next to the light rail station, and will employ more than 200 full-time workers, The Record, of Bergen County, N.J., reported.

Although the grocer revealed last January that it would build a 365 store in Brooklyn, N.Y., no opening date has been set, meaning that the Weehawken location will most likely be the first East Coast 365 store to open.

Since introducing the concept in 2015, Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods has rolled out four locations to date, in Los Angeles; Oswego, Ore.; Cedar Park, Texas; and Bellevue, Wash., with a fifth store opening soon, in Pico, Calif., and 17 more stores, including the Weehawken and Brooklyn locations, in the works.

Whole Foods already operates 17 of its full-size stores in New Jersey.