New Stores Open on Palmer Square To Fill Some Vacancies
By Anne Levin
A furniture retailer and a lobster restaurant are among the new tenants that Palmer Square Management has lined up to fill some of the empty storefronts on and around the square.
Warby Parker, the prescription glasses and sunglasses retailer, opened July 17 at 46 Nassau Street.
Arhaus, a furniture retailer with more than 70 stores around the country including outlets in Freehold, Marlton, and New York City, is moving into 17 Palmer Square East, the space formerly occupied by Brooks Brothers. The store is scheduled to open in the fall.
Arhaus was founded in 1986. The retail chain designs and sells home furnishings in its retail stores, online, and through catalogs. According to its website, most of the furniture it sells is made in North Carolina.
The dine-in and takeout restaurant La La Lobster, which has locations in Cape May and Yardley, Pa., has been signed for 63 Palmer Square West. The Princeton location is “coming soon,” according to the store’s website.
“We have several other signed leases that I still cannot discuss, but I can tell you that there will be quite a few more announcements in the very near future,” said Jamie Volkert, Palmer Square Management’s director of marketing, in an email.
Meanwhile, work appears to be progressing at the former U.S. Post Office site on the Square to which Triumph Brewery has been planning to move from its current location at 138 Nassau Street. California businessman David Eichler won the bidding for the property eight years ago, and plans for Triumph to relocate to the site were announced in 2016. But several issues, involving easements encroaching on municipal property and protected state park land, were among the factors that stalled final approval of the deal.
“Triumph is still planning to move into the historic Post Office on Palmer Square,” said Princeton’s Planning Director Michael LaPlace, in an email. “Renovation work is underway.”
Several storefronts on Nassau Street, including Qdoba, Rug Gallery, Café Vienna, and Panera, have been empty for some time.