Wawa wants to turn one of its shuttered Center City stores into a tech training hub

Wawa is planning to transform its shuttered 19th and Market store into a training center for tech workers.

The plans are “in the works,” Wawa president and CEO Christopher Gheysens said in an interview Friday. He is in discussions with the landlord at 19th and Market Streets to bring the plan to life, he said, but it’s in the early stages.

“When you have a lease for a retail site, landlords typically want that to remain a retail site,” Gheysens said. But leadership at Brandywine Realty Trust, which owns 1900 Market, expressed enthusiasm about the idea.

“Brandywine is excited to see Wawa’s former retail location at 1900 Market reimagined into a center for technology and innovation,” Brandywine president and CEO Jerry Sweeney said in a statement. “The new tech hub will serve as a dynamic addition to the Market Street corridor and highlights Wawa’s forward-thinking approach to business and investment in the City of Philadelphia.”

The space may be dedicated to training tech workers specifically for employment with Wawa, or it may welcome workers and students from other organizations and businesses as well, Gheysens said. Wawa is also working with the CEO Council for Growth within the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.

“Our goal and hope is that it will become a little bit of a beacon at a prime real estate location,” Gheysens said. “That is a great location and hopefully a visible sign that tech is alive and well, and the ecosystem we create around it in Philly is alive and well and grows.”

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The Wawa CEO referred to the plans during the chamber’s economic outlook meeting on Friday. He said the “tech hub” is part of a greater effort to invest in the region’s technology talent market, noting that Wawa builds its own customer-facing technology. The company dedicates about 30% of its overhead spending to technology, Gheysens said, and the company has faced a shortage of midlevel tech talent in the region.

The 19th and Market location, which shut its doors in the fall, is one of five Center City stores Wawa has closed since mid-2020. A closure at 12th and Market was announced at the same time. The other three were at 13th and Chestnut, Ninth and South, and Broad and Walnut.

Asked about the fate of the other locations, Gheysens said the company is working with a nonprofit partner that may be able to use the 13th and Chestnut location, making note of the catering facility in its basement.

He said the 12th and Market location “will not operate as a Wawa,” and the company is negotiating with the landlord on that space. As for the other former Wawas, he had no news to share.

Wawa’s presence in Center City has fluctuated over the past couple of decades. It closed several locations in the early 2000s, and more over the following few years. Then, ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families in 2015, the company looked to add more downtown stores.

The locations opened during that boom were among those that closed in the last two years, less than a decade later.

Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce cited “continued safety and security challenges and business factors” when the closure of the two Market Street stores was announced. But the company also said it wanted “to repurpose these two locations to further benefit Philadelphia.”

How it would do so was unclear at the time, but the early plans appear to be taking shape.