This is a (now former) Burlington Coat Factory in Flemington, New Jersey. The Burlington moved to another shopping center, in the former space of our Bed Bath & Beyond, which recently closed with the chain. Currently, the Burlington is empty.

It’s the left-most store in this shopping center, seen from above here. This was originally a small, one-level indoor mall, but it was retrofitted in the early 2000s into a strip plaza. Here’s a little bit on the original indoor mall. (As it happens, the strip plaza that used to house the Bed Bath & Beyond was also once an indoor mall!)

There was a supermarket on the far right, and I believe next to it a department store, which was at least at one point the Easton, PA-based Orr’s.

But the Burlington spot is what’s interesting to me here, because it was recently announced that Target is planning to move into the space. If it looks a tad small for a Target, it is. In New Jersey and elsewhere, Target is opening smaller-format stores in some of these awkwardly sized, often vacant spaces. They’re far too large for small stores, but too small for a modern discount department store like a Walmart or full-size Target. A lot of them are spaces left behind by defunct category killers like Toys ‘R’ Us, Bed Bath & Beyond, and others.

The Target isn’t universally welcomed, and, in fact, it had to pass a zoning board vote because, according to a local news article:

The project requires a use variance because Target would be considered a conditional use in the zone. Variances will also be sought for signage and number of parking spaces.

I’m just going to pause here and point out that zoning is so complicated and micro-managerial that one big-box chain store cannot even replace another big-box chain store without the specific approval of the board. This sort of thing is common—here’s an example in Maryland. I don’t think most people really understand just how far zoning goes beyond the simple separation of uses. But anyway.

On the Flemington-focused Facebook pages, I’ve seen a lot of comments complaining about the likely increase in traffic or decrease in parking availability, or sarcastically saying things like “Just what Flemington needs!” or “Great, another big-box junk store.”

So that introduces my question: what do you think that Burlington, soon-to-be Target space used to be?

It used to be pretty much exactly what the small-format Target is—first Barker’s, then Jamesway. Both of these were smaller discount department stores, similar to Ames, or Bradlees, or Caldor. This is a whole retail segment that largely disappeared by the mid-2000s, with Walmart eating up the discount department store sector and also centralizing and supersizing it.

So it’s actually a pretty interesting retail story that Target is re-inventing the mid-sized discount department store, which is perfectly sized for a lot of spaces which the retail trends of the last 25 years have left empty.

And this particular spot is perfectly sized for such a store, because that’s how it began life in the first place.

Related Reading:

Roses Are Red, Walmarts Are Blue

How Convenient are Supercenters?

Raising the Roof

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