This Easton project may be our best chance yet to get a Trader Joe’s in the Lehigh Valley

The Confluence

The Confluence, a proposed mixed-use project from Peron Development at 185 S. Third St. in Easton, is seen in an artistic rendering presented at an Easton City Council committee meeting Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020. Courtesy image | For lehighvalleylive.com

Let’s flash back to 2004. The Lehigh Valley was rapidly growing through the development of bedroom communities for people willing to endure a 2-hour commute to New York City. The tradeoff was that they could live in a McMansion by paying a fraction of the price for essentially the same house in North Jersey. These transplants were fairly affluent and had become accustomed to certain spending habits that weren’t in line with what the Lehigh Valley had to offer at the time.

We were a coffee and doughnut community being infiltrated by a latte and croissant community.

It’ll seem trivial to anyone who’s spent any time in a major city or has only recently moved to this area, but when the first free-standing Starbucks opened in 2005 in Lower Nazareth Township’s Northampton Crossings, it was a big deal. Pre-Starbucks, most of us thought a barista meant barhopping on Easter Sunday. Post-Starbucks, we were hooked on infused teas and espressos diluted with frothy almond milk. More Starbucks would open locally in subsequent years and the novelty’s since worn off, but the first one symbolized our arrival to suburbia, for better or worse.

In 2020, the new symbol of suburbia seems to be Trader Joe’s. Like Starbucks almost two decades ago, the grocer has expanded to just about every other comparably sized market around the Lehigh Valley. Its store locator map tells the story: There are a bunch of red stars on it pinpointing Trader Joe’s locations starting west of Philadelphia and curving north toward New York City. It almost looks like an empty bowl. In the middle of that emptiness is a dot marking Easton.

But I think we’ve now found a potential location for the Lehigh Valley’s first one and it’s in Downtown Easton. On Tuesday night, a committee tasked with reviewing proposals for the former Days Inn lot at 185 S. Third St. introduced its preferred proposal. It’s called The Confluence and it comes from Peron Development, which has a track record of building mixed-use developments in high-profile locations. For this marquee location, Peron envisions a mix of as many as 258 apartments plus a 6,000-square-foot studio paired possibly with a hotel or office space, and first-floor retail ideally anchored by a grocery store fronting on South Third Street.

Nothing against Wegmans, Giant or Weis, but their typical footprint would take up the entire lot with little room left for one apartment, let alone 258. Industry reports put the size of the average Trader Joe’s at under 15,000 square feet, which would be a reasonable footprint for an anchor grocery store in The Confluence.

And nothing against smaller discount grocers of that size, but the staff from Runner’s World and other Hearst magazines who will be working across the street in the old Heritage Lanes building will unquestionably need a store with a remarkable variety of granola in order to function properly. Couple that group with Easton’s thriving artist community and the yuppies moving into a growing number of high-end apartments in the Downtown, and you’ve got a serious demand for oat clusters. Trader Joe’s has enough on its shelves to give the people at Quaker an inferiority complex.

To be clear, this is all just speculation. We’re very early in the process, and Peron, like any smart developer, won’t be divulging a tenant until after approvals are in place and a deal’s inked. As for Trader Joe’s, we’ve inquired about its interest in the Lehigh Valley multiple times in recent years. My last pass at them yielded no response. The protocols that apply to the developer also apply to the prospective tenant so I don’t blame Trader Joe’s for not wanting to play the game of speculation.

The grocer, however, put out a podcast series last year that offered some general insight into its expansion plan. Forbes, which distilled the series in a report published in June, quoted CEO Dan Bane on its approach. “We’re targeting to open 30 to 35 stores a year in the 48 states. ... The only thing that holds us back is having the right number of Captains and Mates to open up great stores,” Bane said, per the Forbes report. “So we won’t open a store just because we can, we want to open a store that’s run by the right kind of people doing the right kinds of things, and that’s really important to us.”

Regarding “Captains and Mates,” as someone who grew up around here, I’ll be the first to admit that we’re still far from being the most sophisticated bunch. If we got our hands on a bag of Trader Joe’s trail mix, some of us would probably just pick out the chocolate candies and discard the rest. “If it can’t go on a cake or a hot dog, it ain’t worth eating” is a mantra that still applies to a certain contingent around here. That said, we’re a community full of hard workers and our tastes are changing thanks in part to the influx of transplants. We’d have no problem manning the ship.

And if there’s any question about whether Trader Joe’s “can” open a successful store in Downtown Easton, consider this: Locals since as far back as 2009 have been clamoring for one. They’ve maintained Facebook pages advocating for a Lehigh Valley Trader Joe’s and launched petitions urging the grocer to come here. Such an endeavor wouldn’t only be successful, it would likely create a stir requiring a police presence during the grand opening.

Finally, in an appeal on moral grounds, consider the societal benefits of having a grocery store offering fresh produce at a location near low-income neighborhoods such as the West Ward and South Side (and next-door to a major public transit depot). Residents living in these neighborhoods have seen improved food access in recent years thanks to the opening of the Easton Public Market, but the options are still severely limited for those without access to a car.

So how do you like them organic apples, Mr. Bane?

My wife and I have shopped at several different Trader Joe’s stores over the years despite the closest one being about an hour’s drive away. It offers unique, high-quality items you can’t find anywhere else at reasonable prices in a setting reminiscent of a different era when people didn’t have to drive out to a sprawling shopping center to purchase groceries.

It’s clearly a model that works for shoppers. The key now is to make sure Trader Joe’s knows the proposal for The Confluence in Downtown Easton is clearly a model that works for Trader Joe’s. Happy hunting, Peron Development.

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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