Burlington Opens Early: Peek Inside the New Route 9 Store

Burlington Coat Factory has opened ahead of schedule in Poughkeepsie.

According to Burlington, the grand opening of their newest location isn't supposed to happen until Friday, but on Monday morning shoppers were already picking up bargains at the new Route 9 location.

The brand new store is a sprawling, open space that takes up the entire footprint of the old Toys R' Us building in the Poughkeepsie Plaza. Shoppers were caught by surprise on Monday when they found the lights on and the doors unlocked.  Unlike opening day at the nearby Homegoods and TJ Maxx stores, the crowd was very light. It's likely that this "soft opening" was orchestrated on purpose to avoid the parking and traffic nightmare that happened when those two stores opened their doors in September.

Customers of the old Toys R' Us probably won't even recognize the interior of the store, which has been completely remodeled. Gone are the aisles and shelves. Instead, most of the store is left entirely open, with hundreds of racks taking up most of the floor displaying clothes of every size and style. Shoppers familiar with the old Burlington in the Shoppes at South Hills will find the new store to be a bigger, cleaner and more brightly lit version of the original.

Parking has been a challenge at the Poughkeepsie Plaza, and that will most likely continue once the word gets out that Burlington is open. There is a small parking area in front of the store, but that has been supplemented by a repaved side lot between the new Burlington and Stop & Shop that was never really utilized for Toys R' Us.

If you plan on checking out the new Burlington you may want to get there this week, before the scheduled grand opening on Friday. The highly anticipated new store is expected to draw crowds once word gets out that it's officially open for business.