A history of Wawa’s on-again, off-again relationship with Center City

Wawa announced Thursday that it would be closing two stores in Center City, citing “continued safety and security challenges.”

Mayor Jim Kenney said at a news conference Friday that the announcement “wasn’t a huge surprise to us,” as Wawa and the city had been communicating about these two stores.

“These two particular locations have certain issues that they had to deal with that was costing them money, and it wasn’t really worth it to keep them open,” Kenney said.

The announcement came one day after City Councilmember Mike Driscoll said a Wawa representative told him the company was considering excluding Philadelphia from its expansion plans. The company earlier this year said those expansion plans include eventually opening about 100 new stores every year, building up to a network of almost 2,000 stores by 2030 across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Florida. The next new state it’ll move into is North Carolina.

Driscoll met with representatives from the company after a Wawa store in his district was ransacked by an estimated 100 juveniles in September.

“My concern is that the ongoing violence and sense of lawlessness right now could likely result in a business of any size to consider their future role and position in our city. I believe that Wawa was the latest expression of this concern after the recent incident they experienced in my district and previously in Center City,” Driscoll said in a statement to The Inquirer.

Safety concerns across the city have spiked since the pandemic, as reports of violence on SEPTA soared and shootings continued at a record pace.

Although foot traffic downtown is beginning to return, Paul Levy, head of the Center City District, previously told The Inquirer that there’s a “negative halo” over the city. He organized a group of businesses and organizations to ensure a more visible security presence, and the district, which supports Center City businesses, has itself pledged to put more unarmed bicycle patrols on the streets.

Wawa has cited safety concerns in the past as a reason to close stores or adjust hours. And over the years, the company has increasingly focused its attention on suburban and exurban expansion, where it has more room for so-called Super Wawas with gas pumps and on new markets, like Florida.

Wawa opened its first convenience store in Folsom, Delaware County, in 1964. The chain grew quickly, adding 22 more stores that saw $5.3 million in sales by 1967.

By 1981, Wawa had 240 stores in five states, including several stores in Center City. At the time, Frederic S. Schroeder, then Wawa’s director of marketing, told The Inquirer that the company’s “initial policy was to locate near supermarkets because if you went to the supermarkets and they were closed, you came to us, or on the way back from the supermarkets you stopped in for milk.”

In the early ‘90s, one store in Center City sold only fast food, not groceries, according to the Associated Press. Patrons could pick up Taco Bell burritos and Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas along with their hoagies.

Police recorded 10 violent incidents at Center City Wawas in September 1989, including one store that was reportedly robbed three times by the same person.

That’s when the company abandoned plans to keep its store at Broad and Race open 24 hours. This was just months after the Wawa at 11th and Arch was closed when the company determined that neither employees nor customers at that location felt safe at any time of day.

“We don’t hesitate to close a store or a shift if we feel a site is too dangerous or difficult for our employees, no matter how much money we are making there,” Price, then the company’s executive vice president, said at the time.

Wawa’s downtown presence has fluctuated since then: In the early 2000s, Wawa closed several Center City locations. Two were shuttered between 2007 and 2008, including a location at 20th and Locust.

“It makes me want to move,” Jordan Marks, who lived at 19th and Spruce, told The Inquirer when the store closed. “This is what keeps me in the neighborhood. Forget Rittenhouse: Where’s the Wawa?”

Company spokesperson Lori Bruce at the time said those closings were “not unique to Center City” and called the decisions tough. “Any time we close a store, it’s emotional. You know that song, ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do’? It’s like that,” she said.

“It really is a shock to hear that [Wawa is] reinvesting.”

In the years that followed, stores across the city closed, including one at 20th and Chestnut.

But in 2012 the company introduced a redesign at the 17th and Arch store, which had been open for 35 years. The location doubled to 5,000 square feet, and Wawa called the reopening “a milestone.”

“It really is a shock to hear that they’re reinvesting,” Larry Steinberg, a longtime Center City retail-leasing professional, said in 2012. “I have not seen any new [Wawa] leases in the last, I don’t know, eight years? So this would be a major turning point.”

The redesigned store would also serve as a blueprint for new stores in other states, as company was expanding into Florida. Those expansion plans focused on locations with gas pumps. The company said it wouldn’t build new stores without them. But then-CEO Howard Stoeckel said it would no longer close stores that “underperformed.”

Wawa’s reinvestment in Center City seemed to accelerate after the 17th and Arch redesign. In 2015, a new location at Broad and Walnut was announced. It was the first new Wawa in Center City in decades, The Inquirer reported at the time, and construction was completed in just 85 days, two months ahead of schedule.

The build was expedited to coincide with the World Meeting of Families and Pope Francis’ visit to the city. Wawa provided free meals for first responders during papal festivities.

The next year, Wawa announced another new location, this one at 1900 Market St. While the Broad and Walnut location was touted as Wawa’s “flagship” store in Center City, the 20th and Market outpost would be 7,000 square feet and feature more bar seating than any other Wawa.

Two more stores were announced in October 2016, at 12th and Market and 13th and Chestnut. The next year, Wawa secured permits to build another massive store, an 11,000 square-foot space in Public Ledger Building at Sixth and Market, across from Independence Hall, to be the city’s new “flagship” location.

On April 12, 2018, Wawa held festivities celebrating both the grand opening of a store at 22nd and South and Wawa Day, the anniversary of first store opening. Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens, who took over in 2016, was at the event, along with Mayor Kenney, who called Wawa “one of the best products ever conceived in retail and food.”

By the time the Public Ledger store opened in December, Wawa had 828 locations across six states and D.C., but the company still emphasized its “roots” in Philadelphia.

“It’s our hometown; our roots are here,” Gheysens said. “And we know if you’re going to show up in the historic district, you better bring your best.”

Despite opening several new locations after the 11,000-square-foot flagship (Ninth and South, 16th and Chestnut), Wawa struggled during pandemic and began to close some locations, starting with the Broad and Walnut store in 2020.

“Due to the impact from the pandemic coupled with some operational uncertainties of today, our long-term plans for this store are no longer viable,” the company said that August.

In 2021, recently opened Wawas at 13th and Chestnut and Ninth and South also closed.

Among stores remaining open, some began limiting their hours. Earlier this year, the Wawa at 20th and Hamilton ended its 24-hour service, the most recent Center City location to do so. The 19th and Market and Sixth and Chestnut stores also close at 11 p.m.

“We have limited 24-hour service at some Philadelphia stores which close during much of our lower-traffic overnight hours,” Bruce said in August.

This month, Bruce in a statement said the stores at 12th and Market and 19th and Market would shut “over the next few weeks” due to safety concerns.

“These two particular locations have certain issues that they had to deal with that was costing them money, and it wasn’t really worth it to keep them open,” Kenney told reporters the day after the closures were announced.

Although Bruce said “these two closures do not necessarily impact or limit potential for future stores in Philadelphia County,” Councilmember Driscoll said a company representative told him Wawa was considering excluding Philadelphia from its expansion plans due to crime concerns.

Those expansion plans, according to reports earlier this year, include doubling the number of Wawa stores by 2030 and experimenting with drive-thrus.