By Barbara A. Preston | Posted February 29, 2024
After 15 to 20 years of planning, bulldozers and work crews are on site excavating and preparing a 53.5-acre field on Route 206, just north of Princeton Airport, to become the largest shopping center in the township — Montgomery Promenade.
“Right now, we are just starting our project,” Dimitri Andreopoulos, project superintendent with March Construction based in Wayne, told The Montgomery News on February 21. “We are finalizing the schedule as we speak. Hopefully, within the next year and a half, the buildings will be up and ready to go.”
WORK BEGINS: Contractors installed silt fencing and began work in February on the Montgomery Promenade shopping center — to be anchored by Whole Foods — on Route 206 in Skillman, just north of Princeton Airport.
Montgomery Promenade, a Whole Foods-anchored shopping center, will also feature retail shops and first-to-market restaurants with outdoor dining. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on September 26.
Andreopoulos said, “We are doing a lot of the underground utilities right now. Before we open up the site to the public, all the roadways and DOT [Department of Transportation] work will be completed and done."
The new 292,700-square-foot shopping center is being built in two phases. The project’s first phase includes 11 mixed-use and retail buildings and 29 residential single-family homes. In the second phase, there are five mixed-use and retail buildings planned along with five residential single-family homes.
“We are running about 10 to 12 workers a day right now,” Andreopoulos said.
MOVING DIRT: The scene in February at the Montgomery Promenade site.
SJC Ventures, an Atlanta-based commercial development firm that specializes in mixed-use communities, has taken over the project from Madison Marquette, the national firm that constructed the Princeton MarketFair, a 242,000-square-foot mall on Route 1 in West Windsor.
Once complete, The Montgomery Promenade will be larger than MarketFair. It will also feature a palisades for walking and dedicated open green spaces. The project has been in the works for 15 to 20 years.
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SJC is expected to complete utility and road work to alleviate traffic congestion that is expected at the Route 206 and 518 intersection prior to opening.
Confirmed restaurant leases include: More Than Q Barbeque, which has a location in Lambertville, a Tim McLoone’s Iron Whale and Robinson Ale House, and a Kirk Ruoff’s Turning Point. SJC Ventures owns four Montgomery Township liquor licenses: Three Plenary Consumption Liquor Licenses to be used by restaurants and one distribution liquor license for a package goods store. ■
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