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Groundbreaking for Montgomery Promenade shopping center to be celebrated next week

ByKrystal Knapp Updated
6 Comments
Sketch of shopping center courtyard
A rendering of the courtyard at the Montgomery Promenade.

Officials and the developer of the Montgomery Promenade, a new shopping center that will be built just off Route 206 South in Montgomery, will celebrate the groundbreaking for the long-awaited project next week.

The shopping center will be built on a 54-acre site just south of Route 518 and north of the Princeton Airport. The site has not been developed for more than 15 years. The shopping center is expected to open in the first quarter of 2025.

A Whole Foods store will anchor the 292,700-square-foot development. The site will include retail stores, restaurants, outdoor dining, a movie theater, a bank, a daycare facility, and 34 single-family homes. Tenants already slated to open stores at the shopping center include Ulta Beauty, More than Q, Spavia, The Robinson Ale House, and the Turning Point Restaurant.

Madison Marquette first submitted plans for a shopping center at the site in 2005. The Montgomery Planning Board approved the project in 2018. The property is being developed by SJC Ventures, an Atlanta-based commercial development firm that specializes in mixed-use developments. The firm has developed similar projects throughout the eastern United States and specializes in transforming unused land into active centers.


The shopping center will have 1,499 parking spaces and will be larger than Princeton MarketFair. The developer will build a loop road that will connect Route 518 to Route 206 in order to ease traffic at the already congested intersection. The project will be constructed in two phases. Phase I will include 11 mixed-use retail buildings and 29 residential dwellings. Phase II will include five mixed-use retail buildings and five residential dwellings. 

Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.

6 Comments

  1. The amount of traffic this shopping center will generate will be tremendous. Rt 206 is frequently backed up now without the center. I can only imagine what it will be like when all is said and done. Thank you for the comprehensive story!

  2. Just what we need: another shopping center at the already traffic-choked intersection of Rts. 206 and 518. Montgomery has already added a large residential development on the North side with a planned access to 518 just west of the intersection. Now this unneeded commercial monstrosity on the South side. And, aside from the obvious (ratables!), for what? A movieplex to put the Montgomery Theater out of business? A Whole Foods market because the one on Route 1 is too far away? Hint: Whole Foods is going downhill rapidly since its purchase by Amazon. More mediocre chain restaurants? Larger than Princeton MarketFair? Almost 1,500 asphalt parking spaces? Even more congestion at this overstressed intersection? What’s not to like?

  3. Shopping centers all over the U.S. are dying, and this one doesn’t even have a decent roster of tenants: exactly why is this happening? 206 will be even more of a nightmare than it already is. The 53 acres would be put to far better as open space for this crowded region, with walking trails and playing fields–

  5. This is not what our area needs at all. The township committee over the years has only been looking at tax revenues. Very short sighted. The traffic , the number of shoppers and the chaos will be more than the small area can bear. We had a bucolic town 40 yrs ago and it has transformed into a circus

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