If you live in Upper Moreland or the Abington side of Willow Grove, you have probably noticed the fence line along Welsh Road and the fresh vacancies at the mall. It looks like decline. It is not. The corridor between Easton, York, Moreland, and Welsh is being rewritten from a mall-and-strip-center layout into an apartment-anchored mixed-use district, and the closures you have been watching are the leading edge of that shift, not the end of it.
The single most useful fact for a resident this year is that two of the largest parcels in walking distance of each other are trading control at the same time. One is being torn down on purpose. The other landed on the market because a loan came due. What replaces them will shape traffic, dinner options, and everyday errands for the next decade.
The teardown across from the mall is intentional
The Willow Grove Shopping Center, the outdoor plaza that used to hold Barnes & Noble, Marshalls, Five Below, and Modell's, is coming down in sections. Federal Realty Investment Trust is demolishing about 130,000 square feet of the shopping center to build a mixed-use complex with 261 residential units and 35,000 square feet of new retail space. Demolition of about 130,000 square feet began in the summer with completion expected in 2028. The headline number for the full project is $105 million.
The tenant most residents recognize from this overhaul is already open. Dave's Hot Chicken, a Nashville-style hot chicken franchise, opened at 40 Park Avenue in Willow Grove on Friday, December 13, in a new 2,825-square-foot building that Federal Realty put up as the first completed piece of the plan.
The framing worth holding onto is this one, from the developer running the project. Since the pandemic, the Montgomery County community has "really come alive," due in part to its proximity to the city and to suburban employment centers, said Brennan, who is based in Wynnewood. And people who are moving out of the city or looking to downsize are particularly interested in moving to mixed-use developments, he said. That is a developer's read on demand, and it is being backed with real capital and real bulldozers.
The mall changed hands for a different reason
Directly across Moreland Road, the Willow Grove Park Mall is up for sale, but not because someone chose to sell it. Willow Grove Park Mall is officially up for grabs after a $170 million loan tied to most of the property hit maturity this week, handing control of the sales process to the lender and throwing fresh uncertainty over the suburban retail mainstay in Abington Township.
The specifics matter for anyone trying to read the tea leaves:
- JLL Investors has listed that a 724,728-square-foot portion (or 62 acres) of the 1.137 million square foot mall off Welsh Road could be purchased. That 62-acre segment includes Macy's, Nordstrom Rack, Cheesecake Factory, Sephora, Apple, and Bath & Body Works and has an annual net operating income of $8.8 million.
- The parcels housing Bloomingdale's and Primark are under separate ownership and are not on the market.
- Commercial real estate brokerage JLL describes the mall as an "exceptionally productive" property, listing a 95% occupancy rate in the portion that's for sale.
- JLL's marketing materials show a parking lot on the third level, outside Cheesecake Factory, that could be further developed by a buyer. The sale would be completed as a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and a deal could come in well below the original loan amount as a reflection of the falling value of malls.
Two things stand out. First, the mall is not empty. 95 percent occupancy in the portion being sold contradicts the "dying mall" story a lot of residents tell about the property. Second, the marketing deck itself flags a third-level parking area as developable, which is the polite way of saying a future owner is expected to add housing or entertainment on top of what is there.
Read those two paragraphs together and the corridor's arc gets clearer. On one side of Moreland Road, apartments are being built into what used to be a strip center. On the other side, a mall is being sold with a hint that a buyer could put apartments on it too.
A short ledger of what opened, closed, and got approved
The corridor's turnover this year is easier to hold in your head as a list than as a paragraph.
Opened
- Recletic, in the former Sears. On February 27, 2026, Recletic, a store which carries clothing from Urban Outfitters brands at discount prices, opened in the former Sears space, relocating from the Franklin Mall. That closes out a vacancy the mall had carried since Sears closed its store at Willow Grove Park Mall in 2022.
- Dave's Hot Chicken, running since December 2024 as the first piece of the Federal Realty rebuild.
Closed
- Federal Donuts & Chicken at 4021 Welsh Road. After operating for over a year, Federal Donuts and Chicken permanently closed its shop on Welsh Road. Considered one of Philadelphia's iconic staples, the donut shop expanded into the suburbs with the opening of its location in Montgomery County at 4021 Welsh Road. The Willow Grove location opened in January 2025 and closed in April 2026.
- Carrabba's Italian Grill. Carrabba's Italian Grill has officially closed its Upper Moreland Township location, and now Texas Roadhouse is looking to step in.
- KFC on Easton Road, a corridor fixture that operated near the mall for decades.
Approved or proposed
- Texas Roadhouse, at the former Carrabba's site. According to the township's zoning hearing board agenda, the steakhouse chain submitted plans on February 12 to take over the former Carrabba's site. But this wouldn't simply be a rebrand. Texas Roadhouse is proposing to demolish the existing building and construct a brand-new restaurant, along with site improvements.
- Just Salad, at Willow Grove Pointe. Just Salad, a fast-casual restaurant operating over 100 locations in eight states, is coming soon to Willow Grove. The new restaurant will be located at Willow Grove Pointe, 4025 Welsh Road. Upper Moreland Township approved a Commercial Zoning Use request for the location on March 4.
That is not a picture of a corridor thinning out. It is a picture of legacy tenants leaving and being replaced, sometimes on the same footprint with the old building torn down first.
Reading the pattern
Three things connect the ledger above to the two big real estate moves.
The first is that the format is changing more than the demand. Federal Donuts closed after a year in a small strip-mall slot with 12 seats. Texas Roadhouse is willing to tear down a whole building rather than take Carrabba's box as it stands. Just Salad chose Willow Grove Pointe over the mall food court. The tenants moving in are choosing their own footprints, and the ones going out are usually the ones that inherited someone else's.
The second is that new households are being priced into the plan. 261 apartments across Moreland Road from the mall is not a rounding error. It is a captive daily audience for the retail that Federal Realty is building around them, and it changes the calculus for any restaurant deciding whether Welsh Road is worth a new build.
The third is that the timing lines up. The nearby Willow Grove Shopping Center, at the intersection of Easton and York roads, is in the midst of a $105 million redevelopment that includes 261 residential units and 35,000 square feet of retail. That project runs to 2028. The mall sale is happening now. Whoever buys the mall's 62-acre core will be underwriting it with the assumption that a new residential population is landing across the street inside their hold period.
What to keep an eye on if you already live here
A few practical things worth tracking through the rest of the year and into 2027:
- Traffic staging on Welsh Road as demolition continues. The intersection at Easton and York carries most of the corridor's daily volume, and 130,000 square feet of teardown does not happen quietly.
- The next tenant announcements at the rebuilt shopping center. Federal Realty has been telegraphing a new-to-market grocery concept for the site, which would be the single biggest change to weekly errands for anyone within a few miles.
- Who buys the mall. A buyer with a redevelopment thesis would look very different from a buyer that just wants to run it as retail. The third-level parking lot outside Cheesecake Factory flagged in the JLL deck is the tell.
- The Texas Roadhouse vote and any follow-on tenants at the Carrabba's site. New builds tend to bring parking and site upgrades that ripple to the neighbors.
- The Willowood Building at 2510 Maryland Road. Upper Moreland's Township offices and Police Department have temporarily relocated for building renovations. The new address is: Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Ste 250, Willow Grove, PA 19090. Worth knowing before you drive to the old address for a permit or a police report.
Put all of that together and the corridor you know is not shrinking. It is being rebuilt around a different center of gravity, one that assumes people will live on it rather than only drive to it. That is a specific bet on Willow Grove by two of the larger commercial owners in the region, and it is the sort of shift that shows up in home values, walk times, and where your kids want to meet friends for dinner long before it shows up in a headline.
If you want a read on what any of this means for your own block, or you are weighing whether the corridor changes affect a sale or a purchase you are already thinking about, the DeSantis Real Estate Team lives and works in this market and is happy to talk it through. Contact us any time.
