Brick’s campaign for a Wegmans food store reaches corporate headquarters

Hundreds of requests from Brick residents seeking a Wegmans food store in the Township have been heard by the company's Rochester, New York headquarters after Brick Mayor John Ducey urged people to contact the company to prove there was enough support in the area to justify building a store in Ocean County.  

Jo Natale, Vice President of Media Relations at Wegmans, said they "felt the love," through flattering and heartwarming messages from residents, but when Townsquare Media News asked whether Wegmans would open a store in Brick, she responded, "We can't. We don't  make decisions based on the volume of requests we receive from a community. We can't do that. We have to take lots of things into consideration when we select a site. It certainly doesn't hurt that people want us to come to a community, but we open just three or four new stores each year, and for that reason we can be very methodical in choosing a site."

When deciding on new sites, Wegmans considers the proximity of its existing locations as well as other criteria, including density of population and whether a property can accommodate a store of its size, according to Natale. She added Wegmans almost never goes into an existing structure, and that they usually build from the ground up.

In Brick's case, Natale those criteria might exist, but when Wegmans takes everything into account, they can only choose as many sites as they can manage building.

"We never say never, of course, but we have no plans today to open a store there [in Brick Township]. We're not considering sites there at this point in time. Of course, we have a store in Ocean Township [Monmouth County].

Natale noted that Wegmans is working on two stores that will open in 2017 in northern New Jersey, in Hanover and Montvale, and have several new stores already scheduled for several years in the six states where Wegmans has existing stores.  Those states include New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Massachusetts.

"We are fully scheduled out for 2016, 2017 and even well into 2018 and 2019. We have lots of others in the pipeline where we haven't even announced yet that are under consideration," Natale said. She added, "Again, we never say never. Brick we love you right back. It was wonderful to see all those lovely comments. We know it's a little bit of a drive for you, but please continue to visit us in our other nearby stores, but right now we don't have a plan."

Townsquare Media News was the first to inform Mayor Ducey of Wegman's decision. After a few moments of silence, Ducey reacted.

"Oh. wow. That's very disappointing. I was waiting to actually hear back from a different representative at Wegmans. I haven't heard back from them myself, but to hear that news is very disappointing. Well, hopefully we could still change their minds," said Ducey.

Ducey said he's still hoping for a return call from an original member of the Wegman family. Ducey said he was aware Wegman's chooses sites years in advance and added, "I just wanted to get into that cue line so that we would be one of the next ones to get a Wegmans."