Drive west on Route 70 past the D&Q Plaza and the Cherry Hill Mall on the same afternoon and you'll pass two fenced construction sites within about a mile of each other. Both replaced buildings that had been there for decades. Both generated headlines about square footage and grand openings. It would be easy to assume they're on the same timeline, part of the same wave of change hitting that stretch of road. They aren't, and knowing which is which says something about how this corridor actually moves.
Two Fences, Two Clocks
The H Mart site and the Cherry Hill Mall's House of Sport site are run by two entirely different companies with two entirely different sets of incentives. H Mart is a private grocery chain that closed its Route 70 store in June 2025, set its own renovation schedule, and reopened on the date it announced months in advance. The mall's anchor project belongs to PREIT, a mall operator managing dozens of other tenants and a multi-year capital plan, and its timeline has moved in fits and starts since the office building it's replacing came down. One of these projects is finished. The other is still behind a fence with no announced date.
What Actually Reopened in April
H Mart's Route 70 location had operated for nearly 25 years on a single floor at the back of the D&Q Plaza before the company closed it in June 2025 for what it described as a full renovation rather than a refresh. It reopened on Thursday, April 23, 2026, as a two-floor, 39,000-square-foot building, roughly double its old footprint, with the grocery on the ground level and a new second-floor food hall called the Market Eatery above it. The Philadelphia Inquirer visited a few weeks after the reopening and described crowds still marveling at the scale of the change.
The food hall launched with vendors including Paris Baguette and KyoDong Noodle, with JAWS Topokki & Gimbap, a Korean street food concept known for tteokbokki and gimbap, joining the lineup over the summer. Opening day drew enough traffic that the parking lot filled by 10:30 a.m. and cars backed up onto Route 70 West, with Cherry Hill police directing traffic in the lot, according to local coverage of the reopening.
None of that construction touched the mall a mile away. It's a separate building, a separate lease, and a separate company's decision about when to reopen.
A Second, Unrelated Kitchen on the Same Road
While H Mart was closed for renovation, a different Route 70 storefront changed hands entirely. Cherry Hill Eatery took over the space that Raku had vacated, and rather than one restaurant it opened as three concepts under a single roof: The Wok for Chinese specialties, Mala Station for spicy hot pot, and Utepia Tea for bubble tea and dessert. This had nothing to do with H Mart's renovation or the mall's construction. It's the kind of ordinary turnover that happens on a busy commercial road regardless of what the bigger projects nearby are doing, and it's easy to miss if you're only tracking the two headline-grabbing sites.
Between the Market Eatery's arrival and Cherry Hill Eatery's three-concept format, the corridor picked up close to a dozen new food options in under a year, on top of what was already there.
Meanwhile, the Mall's Anchor Project Is Still Waiting
The Cherry Hill Mall's House of Sport is a different story. The 120,000-square-foot store is replacing One Cherry Hill, the nine-story office building that anchored a corner of the mall's parking lot for decades, and it's designed to include a climbing wall, golf bays with TrackMan simulators, an outdoor track and field, and a multi-sport cage for baseball, softball, lacrosse, and soccer. Demolition of the office tower wrapped in late summer 2025. As of a report published in June 2026, an official opening date still had not been set, with the mall's own site reading simply "Opening in 2026." When it does open, it will be New Jersey's third House of Sport location, joining existing stores in Freehold and Jersey City, which opened its doors in September 2025, about a year ahead of Cherry Hill's still-pending unveiling.
That doesn't mean the mall has been standing still while the anchor project drags. Coach, Dr. Martens, Pop Mart, and Offline by Aerie all opened as part of a separate wave of new leases inside the mall, on their own individual schedules, unconnected to when House of Sport eventually opens its doors. If you've noticed the mall feeling different lately even though the big fenced-off corner still looks the same, that's why. Several smaller changes moved faster than the one large one.
The One Date on the Calendar That Isn't Waiting on Anybody
If the two construction sites are a study in contrast, Cherry Hill's Harvest Festival is the one piece of fall programming that doesn't depend on a contractor's schedule. It returns to Croft Farm at 100 Bortons Mill Road on Sunday, October 18, from noon to 4 p.m., rain or shine, with more than 100 artists, crafters, businesses, and community organizations setting up around the historic farm property. Past years have included free pumpkins, a petting zoo, and a beer garden, along with live music and craft vendors, and the township's own event page describes it as one of Cherry Hill's biggest annual community traditions.
It's a useful marker precisely because it isn't tied to anyone's construction timeline. The Market Eatery opened on the date H Mart chose. Cherry Hill Eatery opened whenever its buildout finished. House of Sport will open whenever PREIT's permits and construction line up. The Harvest Festival, by contrast, happens on the township's calendar every year, regardless of what's happening a mile down Route 70.
What This Actually Tells You About the Corridor
The lesson isn't that Route 70 is changing fast or slow. It's that it changes in pieces that don't move together, even when the headlines make them sound like one continuous story. A private company's renovation and a mall operator's multi-tenant redevelopment can sit less than a mile apart, generate similar press about square footage and grand openings, and still land on completely different calendars. Watching closely enough to know which fence is temporary and which building already reopened isn't a small thing if you actually spend time on that road. It's the difference between assuming "the mall project" covers everything happening nearby and knowing exactly what's open right now.
If you're keeping half an eye on how Cherry Hill keeps shifting along its main commercial spine, that kind of detail tends to matter more than another list of restaurant names.
Nicholas Celfo keeps an eye on these small shifts across South Jersey because they're part of what makes each town what it is, not because every change needs to lead somewhere. If you ever want to talk through what's new in Cherry Hill or any of the towns nearby, reach out to Nicholas Celfo any time. Let's Connect.
