Wawa may be axing expansion plans in Philadelphia due to crime concerns

Dive Brief:

Wawa may cease future expansion plans in Philadelphia due to crime concerns around the city, according to a Wednesday report from the Philadelphia Business Journal.
According to the report, during an Oct. 11 forum hosted by the Philadelphia Real Estate Alliance, Philadelphia Councilmember Mike Driscoll said a senior Wawa representative told him the company is “seriously considering” moving out of Philadelphia in its strategic planning.
The news comes just a couple weeks after a Wawa in Mayfair, Pennsylvania — about 10 miles north of downtown Philadelphia — was ransacked by about 100 people, costing the store about $10,000 in damages.

Dive Insight:

According to reports, Driscoll said during the forum that he met with Wawa representatives the day after the events at the store in Mayfair, which was when he learned about the company’s potential plans to ax its expansion plans in Philadelphia.

Wawa, which is based 30 miles outside of Philadelphia, did not respond by press time to a request for comments. According to a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wawa does not comment publicly on its planning process.

If Wawa ends up halting its growth plans in Philadelphia — where it currently operates 50 stores — it will come during what CEO Chris Gheysens has said to be “the most aggressive growth” period in its history, with plans to nearly double its store count by 2030 to about 1,800 locations.

In April, Wawa revealed plans to expand to Alabama and the Florida Panhandle region in 2024 and to open 54 new stores in 2022. Two months later, Wawa disclosed plans to open a store in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2025 — its first location in the state, which may have as many as 40 locations in the future, the company said at the time. Just weeks after that, Wawa announced plans to expand its footprint in Central Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River. In early October, Wawa announced plans to expand into Georgia in 2024 and potentially add up to 20 additional sites in the state.

Crime is unfortunately a regular occurrence in c-stores for many reasons, including the small, low-staff setup and high in and out rate. In 2021, gas stations and c-stores combined for 37,561 violent criminal offenses reported to the FBI — that’s over 5% of the country’s overall violent crimes that year, according to the FBI’s most updated Law Enforcement Data Explorer. Between 2011 and 2021, c-stores and gas stations had a combined 202,552 violent criminal offenses reported.