Country Curtains opened last month after relocating to a new space across Broad Street from its former home in the Grove shopping center. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
There’s lots of Retail Churn activity to report concerning three Metrovation-owned properties in Shrewsbury.
The development firm, which built Red Bank’s 91-residence West Side Lofts apartment-and-stores project and is about to transform the long-vacant Anderson Building at the borough train station into a second Sickles Market store and office building — as reported Thursday by redbankgreen — has also been involved in a flurry of leasing deals one town over.
Open just a year on Newman Springs Road, Platypus is closing but will rebrand, an employee said. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
• Country Curtains has completed its move from Metrovation’s Grove at Shrewsbury shopping center across Broad Street (Route 35) to a building that’s just one lot north of, and considered part of, the Grove West. Metrovation bought and remodeled the structure, a former day spa, creating space for two businesses.
• Next door to Country Curtains, Metrovation partner Chris Cole is working on bringing in a restaurant whose name he’s not ready to disclose. If the deal goes through, the tenant is expected to buy the liquor license that Cole acquired from the former Memory Bowling at 89 Newman Springs Road, which burned down 2009 and has since been replaced by a new three-store strip mall.
• Speaking of the bowling alley site, one of its three tenants, furniture retailer Playtpus, is closing, according to postings on its website and Facebook pages.
Unsaid on either of those sites, however, is that the store plans to reopen as Port & Manor, an employee tells Churn. Port & Manor has two stores in Dallas, Texas, and one in San Rafael, California, according to its website.
Steve Brooks, who owns both brands, did not respond to a request for comment.
Platypus moved to its present location from the Grove just a year ago. In the last year, Platypus stores in the Market Square Mall outside Princeton and another in Chester have also been closed, according to web postings.
• Meanwhile, in the larger Grove at Shrewsbury, on the east side of the highway, Madewell, a JC Crew clothing line, is taking the former Country Curtains space. An April 26 opening is planned, according to company website.
• Also in the Grove, chef Casey Pesce’s d’Jeet restaurant reopened after a remodeling.
