The popular high-end Philadelphia retailer Boyds will now have a permanent presence in the suburbs with its new store in Wayne at 201 W. Lancaster Ave. opening in September, writes Natalie Kostelni for Philadelphia Business Journal.

A temporary store at Suburban Square in Ardmore will close.

The Wayne store will take up 11,000 square feet that had been occupied for more than 25 years by Anthropologie.

There’s been a lot of interest in the Art Deco building at 201 W. Lancaster, according to Colliers retail broker Larry Steinberg.

He was hired to find tenants for the landlord, a local family. “A lot of developers wanted to come and buy the building but this family is not selling,” he said.

There was a bicycle manufacturer, an outdoor apparel retailer and an investment brokerage.

“It was hard to turn down those tenants but to Boyds’ credit, they came in with the best deal,” Steinberg said.

Boyds, a Center City institution, opted to expand into the suburbs after civil unrest in the summer of 2020 brought destruction and looting to its store at 1818 Chestnut Street. It also lost Center City workers to the pandemic when they fled to the suburbs.

Read more at Philadelphia Business Journal about the Boyds in Wayne.