A flattened plastic cup sits in the driveway outside the Wawa at Sumneytown Pike and Valley Forge Road in Upper Gwynedd on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Popular Sumney Forge Square store to close ahead of long-awaited Super Wawa project at Valley Forge Road and Sumneytown Pike
Gotta have a Wawa – somewhere else.
The long-standing and popular Upper Gwynedd Township Wawa’s last day of business is Wednesday, as it will close and reopen in the future as a Super Wawa location at Valley Forge Road and Sumneytown Pike.
“We apologize, this location is closing on Thursday, August 21, 2025,” stated a sign in the store entrance, inviting customers to visit their two locations in Towamencin and Hatfield Township at Cowpath Road and N. Broad Street.
“Another classic Wawa bites the dust. Let's pour one out for Sumney Forge Square. RIP,” posted Philadelphia-based sports page Crossing Broad on Facebook. The post received more than 250 comments, with a majority of people remembering when Sumney Forge Square was a bustling shopping center.
“My first job was at Famous Pizza in the early 80s. I banked at the bank there, got my haircuts downstairs, bought sneakers at the sneaker store, and of course went to the drug store for all kinds of things,” commented Bruce Pelly.
“Only the real ones remember when that was a drugstore and you could walk from there into Famous Pizza without even going outside. Classic,” commented Kevin Manero.
“I lived down the street from this place for my entire childhood and early adult years. Used to save up my quarters to ride my bike there and get a slushy and a bag of chips then ride home. I remember riding the ‘bowl’ in the back where the old bank and dry cleaners used to be with friends. Lots of great memories in that shopping center,” wrote Jim William.
“I have been going to this location for close to 30 years ... I remember when it was a busy strip mall filled with different shops. It has been empty and falling apart for many years. Sad to see it go. It will be interesting to see how the traffic will navigate at this intersection,” commented Kimberly Ann.
Rendering of a planned new Wawa convenience store with fuel pumps, as seen from Sumneytown Pike in Upper Gwynedd, as presented during the Nov. 21, 2023 township commissioners meeting. (Image provided by Wawa developer)According to The Reporter, township officials voted in late 2023 to approve plans for a Super Wawa on the corner near North Penn High School and across from North Penn Marketplae, the latest step in nearly a decade of attempts to redevelop that corner and replace a vacant shopping center there.
"The proposal is, as you know, to raze the center and the existing buildings, and redevelop it into a Wawa store of 5,330 square feet, with gas pumps,” said attorney Christen Pionzio back in January 2024.
In the fall of 2022, the township commissioners and public first heard about the latest version of the proposed project, to be built on the southeast corner of Valley Forge Road and Sumneytown Pike, where the largely vacant "Sumney Forge Square” shopping center and a Wawa store are just behind a Marathon gas station and garage on a separate parcel on the corner, just across the street from North Penn High School in neighboring Towamencin.
The site was the subject of litigation in 2012-13 regarding earlier plans for an expanded Wawa there, and developer Provco Pinegood, which is proposing the latest plans, was also part of a dispute over similar plans farther east on Sumneytown, at the corner of West Point Pike, in 2016-17.
At the end of 2022, the township heard that Provco would ask the township’s zoning hearing board for a special exception to allow the sale of gas, and for variances allowing signage beyond what’s currently allowed by code, and in early 2023 the board heard about litigation between the Wawa developer and the adjacent North Penn Auto Service about the auto shop using parking on the Wawa’s property.
During a pair of presentations in November 2023, Pionzio and a team on behalf of Wawa and developer Bruce Goodman gave the commissioners an update on that litigation, and presented the latest version of plans for feedback and possible approval.
Regarding the North Penn Auto suit, the attorney told the commissioners then, "we are very glad to tell you that we settled all of that,” with provisions for the auto shop to use 14 parking spaces in the latest plans.
In the latest version, the attorney told the board, the 4.1-acre site would see the current 21,000-square-foot shopping center building demolished and replaced with a new Wawa store, behind a canopy covering eight pumps and a total of 16 fueling positions.
Impervious coverage on the site would be reduced from the current 64 percent coverage down to just under 48 percent coverage, the attorney told the board, largely by demolishing the current building and adding landscaping and a stormwater retention basin along the southern side of the site.
"The rear portion of our property is significantly green. We do have a stream along the rear of the property line,” she said last year.
Driveway access would be provided via a right-in, right-out driveway onto Valley Forge Road and right-in, right-out from Sumneytown Pike, with a total of 69 parking spaces on the lot, well above the 38 required by township codes.
The second major question for board discussion centered on sidewalks: traffic engineer Matt Hammond showed how the plans call for sidewalks along both the Sumneytown Pike and Valley Forge Road frontages, ramps with crosswalks at the entrance driveways, and pedestrian paths connecting those sidewalks to the Wawa building.
The board voted unanimously to grant the preliminary and final land development approval for the plans, and in December 2023, then township planning and zoning officer Van Rieker said the project team was working with staff to finalize documentation prior to issuing building permits.
Following the vote in January 2024, outgoing Commissioner Martha Simelaro said this brought a close to a topic she’d heard discussed, and "really wrestled with,” during her entire four-year stint on the board.
"One of our campaign promises was that we were going to improve that Wawa property, because it was a blight, and we wanted to improve all of the blighted properties. I do hope, by approving this project, that we can accomplish that,” she said. "I just hope that the project, when it comes to fruition, does become what we’ve looked at, and is a benefit to the township.”
Pionzio answered: "I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Every project I work on with Bruce is top-notch, so I’m certain it’ll be the same here in Upper Gwynedd.”
Dan Sokil contributed to this article. A portion of this article appears courtesy of a content share agreement between North Penn Now and The Reporter. To read more stories like this, visit www.thereporteronline.com.
