About thirteen months ago, the westbound side of Route 70, just before the 295 on-ramp, was a construction fence and a dark storefront. H Mart, the Korean grocery store that had anchored that stretch for 25 years, closed its doors and stayed closed for the better part of ten months. A few miles away, on the edge of the Cherry Hill Mall parking lot, a nine-story office tower sat mostly overlooked, the kind of building most residents drove past without a second glance.
Neither building exists in its old form anymore. The grocery store reopened this past April with a second floor nobody expected. The office tower is gone entirely, and what's rising in its place has nothing to do with office space. Two of the township's most visible commercial buildings didn't get a fresh coat of paint or a new tenant sign this year. They got torn down or gutted and rebuilt for a completely different purpose than the one they were built for.
Same Town, Two Buildings, Same Instinct
It would be easy to read these as unrelated stories: a grocery renovation here, a mall project there. But look at what each project actually chose to become. H Mart didn't open a second location somewhere else in the township. It closed the only one it had and doubled the building's footprint in place, adding an entire floor dedicated to sit-down food. PREIT, which owns Cherry Hill Mall, didn't lease out the old office tower to another office tenant. It demolished the building and is replacing it with a 120,000-square-foot recreation complex.
Both moves point the same direction: toward buildings designed for people to stay in, not just pass through.
| Site | A Year Ago | Right Now |
|---|---|---|
| Route 70 grocery lot | Single-floor H Mart, closed for renovation | Two floors, new Market Eatery food hall, reopened April 23, 2026 |
| Mall parking lot | Nine-story One Cherry Hill office tower | Under construction: 120,000-square-foot Dick's House of Sport |
Two conversions, one instinct. Cherry Hill keeps turning functional buildings into places built for lingering.
Ten Months, Two Floors: What's Actually Inside The New H Mart
H Mart's Cherry Hill location closed for renovation in the summer of 2025, and the timeline slipped well past the original estimate before the company confirmed a reopening date of April 23, 2026 at 10 a.m. What opened that morning was not the same store. The lower level still holds the grocery operation, remodeled with new produce cases and equipment, but the real change is upstairs. H Mart added a second floor that didn't exist before, built around a Market Eatery food hall.
The initial food hall lineup included Kyodong Noodles, a Korean-style Chinese noodle shop, alongside Daily Seoul, Mirim, The Dak for Korean fried chicken, Dduk Dabang for Korean street food, and Tiger Sugar for bubble tea. A Paris Baguette location sits near the front of the upper level. Vendors kept signing on through the summer beyond that initial roster, with JAWS Topokki confirming a Cherry Hill location targeted for a July 2026 opening. The second floor also holds a small arcade, health and beauty aisles, and a home goods section the company is calling Hello Home.
None of that existed in the old single-floor store. For a grocery run that used to mean twenty minutes in and out, the upstairs addition turns the same trip into an actual outing, food hall seating included. If you're planning a first visit, the opening weekend crowds were heavy enough that a weekday afternoon will get you a shorter line and an easier parking spot, since the lot itself was also repaved as part of the project.
The Tower That Isn't There Anymore
The other half of this story sits across town at Cherry Hill Mall, where the nine-story One Cherry Hill office building came down in the summer of 2025 to make way for Dick's House of Sport. This isn't a standard Dick's Sporting Goods. The complex spans roughly 120,000 square feet across two floors, with a 60,000-square-foot store footprint plus an outdoor synthetic turf track and field. Inside, the plans call for a climbing wall, a bank of golf bays with TrackMan simulators, and a multi-sport cage set up for baseball, softball, lacrosse, and soccer, letting shoppers test equipment before they buy it.
Cherry Hill's version will be New Jersey's third House of Sport, following one that opened in Freehold and another at Jersey City's Newport Centre, which held its grand opening in September 2025, about a year ahead of Cherry Hill's own timeline. As of the most recent public updates, PREIT has continued to describe the Cherry Hill opening only as sometime in 2026, with construction still underway. Worth knowing before you plan a visit to the mall this fall: the entrance near the food court will stay closed for the duration of construction, and the project is expected to eliminate roughly 230 parking spaces before a modest net increase once it's finished.
The Rest Of The Mall Lineup Filled In Around It
House of Sport isn't the only new name at Cherry Hill Mall this year. Coach opened a location built around its handbag business, Dr. Martens moved in with its footwear line, and OFFLINE by Aerie brought in a fitness apparel concept. POP MART, the toy company behind the Labubu collectible line, converted from a vending kiosk into a full storefront. On the dining side, Suki Hana opened offering fast-casual teriyaki bowls, sushi, and hibachi-style plates. lululemon is relocating into a larger, more prominent spot in the mall as part of the same wave of changes.
PREIT has been open about the strategy behind these additions, describing the goal as building out diverse, experience-driven retail rather than simply backfilling empty storefronts. That framing lines up with what's happening a few miles away on Route 70. A collectibles store built around a cultural phenomenon, an expanded flagship for a brand people already shop, and a sports complex replacing an office tower are all the same kind of bet: that people will drive to Cherry Hill not just to buy something, but to spend an afternoon.
What This Means If You Already Live Here
If you've lived in Cherry Hill for a while, you've probably made the drive into Philadelphia for a proper Korean meal, or driven to a specialty golf simulator lounge for an evening with friends. Both of those trips just got a lot shorter. The Market Eatery upstairs at H Mart puts several distinct Korean and Taiwanese food concepts under one roof a few minutes from home, and once Dick's House of Sport finishes construction, the batting cage and golf bay outing that used to mean a special trip becomes something you can fit into a Saturday afternoon without leaving the township.
This fall is a reasonable window to explore both while they're still taking shape. The food hall's vendor lineup is still filling in, which means new stalls keep showing up on repeat visits, and the mall's House of Sport construction is far enough along that the changed traffic patterns around that entrance are worth knowing before you plan a trip.
Cherry Hill isn't just adding stores this year. It's rebuilding two of its most visible buildings around the idea that residents will stick around longer once they arrive. That's a different kind of growth than a new store opening in an empty storefront, and it's worth noticing while it's still happening around you.
If you're already part of this community and curious about how these changes might affect your own corner of Cherry Hill, or if you're weighing a move within the township and want a local read on what's changing block by block, the Colleen Hadden Group would be glad to talk through it, whether that means a market conversation or simply a guided tour of what's new around town.
