5 Lenape Rd, Andover, NJ

Original Tenant: A&P

Address: 5 Lenape Rd, Andover, NJ

Opened: 1970s

Closed: late 90s

Later Tenants: The Open Box Shop

Photographed: April 2020

Quite the interesting former A&P here in Andover, along route 206 just south of Newton. Now, it's not exactly a surprise that a supermarket couldn't survive here. This roughly 30,000 square foot store is located smack in the middle of this town of just 600 people. It's about five miles from the large stores we saw in Newton and roughly four miles north of the ShopRite in Byram.

This store likely closed as an A&P in the late 1990s, and was an A&P Sav-A-Center in its final days. Acme Style has coverage of the store from back in 2009, when the A&P decor was all still up on the walls. We'll take a brief look inside now that The Open Box Shop, a discout store, has set up shop inside.

As Acme Style writes, it's a very strange property constructed around an existing older stone building. The supermarket actually faces away from both of the main roads, and you can see 206 in the distance above.

A&P's lights have been replaced with similar looking but newer lights!

Here's a look at the whole strip mall, which also has a few other storefronts. I took the following photos of The Open Box Shop through the front windows when they were closed due to the coronavirus, but I've also been inside and there's really nothing left from A&P inside.

Very sad to see the pristine A&P decor that Acme Style captured is long gone.

Here's a look at the plaque that explains the historical building on the property, which we'll see shortly. The plaque, in case you can't read it, says: "ANDOVER FURNACE - The original blast furnace and forge, it made iron and steel for the Continental Armies 1778-1783. Last rebuilt as a furnace in 1761, it was converted to a grist mill in 1816. Erected by Borough of Andover, NJ 1964." I wonder whether that means the strip mall that surrounds the building, or just this specific plaque.

A look at the parking lot out towards Lenape Rd. If you zoom in, you can see the post that once held the A&P logo, which is now holding The Open Box Shop's sign below where the A&P logo used to be. I attempted to photograph the remaining signpost but somehow missed and got this instead...

Anyway, back to the main building. Here we see the side of the strip mall looking back to the original furnace/grist mill building.

Notice that the building extending out of the original one has similar stonework, although obviously an imitation.

Nice to see the original building is still preserved though!

Here's the original building in context. We can very clearly see how the A&P was constructed around the original furnace building. The loading docks for the A&P stretched around the older mill building, which I don't believe was included in the A&P space.

Here's a close-up of the loading docks which now seem to be used by the post office in the same strip mall. It looks like A&P also had another single loading dock at the other side of the building. Well, I was really hoping the A&P decor was still on the walls and that the store was still vacant, but it's still a great stop and I'm glad I got to document this very unusual strip mall! Tomorrow we have our final Sussex County store, an update to one we've already toured. Check it out on The Market Report!