Tidal impact from Ida continues as Downingtown residents petition Wawa to reopen iconic store on Wallace Avenue

DOWNINGTOWN — Community hubs are essential places to connect with neighbors, strangers and friends.

Since 1989, that place for countless Downingtown locals has been the Wawa store on Wallace Avenue.

However, in the wake of major spring and summer storms this year, the location sustained massive damages due to floodwaters reaching into the facility. The first major incident occurred on June 8 followed by the most recent disaster earlier this month with Hurricane Ida, which hit the region as a tropical storm, on Sept. 1.

After Ida, the Wawa store never reopened.

“Downingtown just experienced a devastating flood, among the largest in its long history,” said Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell on Thursday.

This resulted in hundreds of people displaced from their homes and businesses devastated, Maxwell said.

The commissioner continued, “Now it’s time as a community to find out why this flood happened to the extent it did, fix what we can, and make sure our neighbors and emergency responders are never in this situation again.”

And in Downingtown, regarding the only Wawa ever operational within borough limits — according to nearly 2,000 residents thus far — is not only an important flagship location for the community but also worth fighting for despite the odds.

After news broke that the general store on Wallace Street would never reopen again, following Ida, in less than 24 hours 1,985 people, as of press time, swiftly signed a petition appealing to Wawa to reopen the store via Change.org.

Local resident Lukas Jenkins started the petition on Wednesday. He told Downingtownians: “Like many residences and businesses in Downingtown the Wawa on Wallace Ave. suffered major flooding and water damage following the remnants of Hurricane Ida.”

The popular Wallace Ave. Wawa — at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Wallace avenues next to Kerr Park — is a prime location for community members, Jenkins said. The busy shopping center and nearby park, which is a 45-acre green space with an accessible playground, picnic pavilions, a skate park and trout hatchery, bring enormous business to this Wawa.

Already, according to Jenkins, patrons miss the store’s presence greatly.

“The firefighters and emergency medical personnel from Minquas Fire Co. No. 2 also frequent this location multiple times a day,” Jenkins said. “By closing this location Wawa is forcing us to go to Turkey Hill or Royal Farms as the next closest convenience stores.”

“We are deeply appreciative of the support customers have shown and are sympathetic to their sentiments,” said Lori Bruce, senior manager of media relations for Wawa, on Thursday.

“Everyone at Wawa thanks all of our customers who have visited us at this Downingtown store during the past 32 years,” she said.

With a net worth of approximately $30 billion, Wawa was founded on April 16, 1964, in Folsom, Pennsylvania. Folsom is just a few miles shy of Philadelphia in Delaware County,

Today, the company is headquartered elsewhere in the region, near Media along the U.S. Route 1 in the Borough of Chester Heights, Delaware County, which is less than 20 miles southeast of Downingtown in Chester County.

“Please know how much we appreciate the customers we have been able to serve through the years at this location. We remain committed to being a strong community partner with our nearby stores and through our partnerships and support of community organizations,” Bruce said.

“Earlier this week, we made the difficult decision to close our Downingtown store located at 100 Wallace Street,” Bruce stated. “After the most recent storms, Wawa identified significant weather-related water damage to this store. After careful and extensive evaluation of repairs needed or the possibility of expansion, we came to the difficult decision to close the store.”

Bruce added, “Be assured that whenever we close a store, all associates at that location are always offered continued employment at a comparable position at another store. Please know we have relocated all associates who worked at the location to other stores nearby.”

She said Wawa hopes to continue to serve local Downingtown customers at other nearby Wawa locations. The nearest Wawa stores now to Downingtown are located in East Caln Township. Those venues are located at 100 Boot Road and 1083 E. Lancaster Ave. respectively.

Both of these stores have a Downingtown mailing address despite being located in a neighboring municipality.

“Wawa constantly evaluates the performance of all of our stores on a regular basis. Whenever possible, we modernize our older stores rather than close them,” Bruce said.

Of the Wallace Street store in Downingtown, Wawa has considered as many options as possible to keep this store open, but found to do so would be unfeasible, Bruce said, including “to make the repairs needed or modify this store to meet our current standards.”

“We’ve all heard the theme-song for ‘Cheers’ — when you go into a place ‘where everybody knows your name’ — that’s this Wawa,” said Downingtown Mayor Phil Dague on Thursday.

The mayor said he’s never entered the store and witnessed it not bustling with local activity.

He said usually most of the people he’d run into during a given week happened at the Wawa store on Wallace Street.

Dague said that everyone knew the people working there. The mayor described the location as having a community atmosphere so friendly that the environment there always “felt like family.”