Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
The old Echelon Mall in Voorhees is officially primed for revitalization, after a seven-year effort to rescue the lifeless shopping center. A township board last week unanimously approved a North Jersey developer’s plans to build townhomes, commercial and community spaces, and a parking garage on the mall property, which was partially demolished and rebranded as the Voorhees Town Center in 2008. The Hoboken Brownstone Company plans to construct more than 200 market-rate townhomes, as well as more than 100 units of affordable housing, both for-sale townhomes and rental apartments, according to township documents. The project is also set to include 38,000 square feet of new commercial and entertainment space; a parking garage with at least 1,300 spots; outdoor areas and bike paths; and a 30,000-square-foot indoor community space donated by the developer. Township officials declined to estimate how much the project would cost, and Hoboken Brownstone executives did not return requests for comment Tuesday. Mayor Michael Mignogna called the plan “a transformational public-private partnership” that will be built in phases, with the commercial components coming last. The mayor said the project will include payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) “to help balance redevelopment costs and sustain municipal services,” bringing in millions of dollars in revenue and easing the burden on taxpayers. “For decades, the Echelon Mall was the heartbeat of our community,” Mignogna said in a statement. “This redevelopment gives us the opportunity to bring that heartbeat back.” At last week’s meeting, township committee members noted that the mall has been “dead” for a long time. » READ MORE: Why Philly-area shoppers are mourning Neshaminy Mall’s glory days on TikTok The $80 million, 400-acre Echelon Mall development was built in 1970 on the site of a former airfield. Once New Jersey’s second largest mall after Cherry Hill, and known as “The Mall” in the 1970s and 80s, it started to struggle even before the broader decline of in-person retail. It lost Sears and JCPenney in the early 2000s. When Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) bought the property in 2003, the mall was already seeing vacancies. But then, there were signs of hope: In 2006, a Main Street-style mixed-use development was approved for part of the property. About 400 residential units, including rentals, were added, and by 2008, the Voorhees Town Center celebrated its grand opening. The plan was estimated to have cost $150 million. A few years later, the township spent $5.5 million to buy and renovate 22,000 square feet of the mall for a new town hall. The town center’s mixed-used section, Boulevard Shoppes, brought in restaurants like Iron Hill Brewery, which this fall filed for bankruptcy and closed all locations, including Voorhees. But next door, the mall continued to lose tenants and customers. In 2015, Namdar Realty Group, which is known to scoop up distressed malls, bought the property from PREIT for $13.4 million. Namdar representatives did not return a request for comment Tuesday. By 2018, at least a dozen more stores had closed in a two-year span. They included Macy’s, one of the mall’s last anchors. In 2018, remaining business owners described a sad scene, saying the place was at times “totally dead.” In April 2024, a two-alarm fire forced the mall to close and further complicated redevelopment plans. It hasn’t reopened since. The mall’s website still said it was “temporarily closed” Tuesday. Boscov’s, the complex’s remaining department store, is still open. While the property’s redevelopment will include the Macy’s building, according to township documents, Boscov’s has never been included in such plans. Last year, executives of the Reading-based retailer told The Inquirer they planned to continue operations there, regardless of what comes next for the larger mall. The former Echelon Mall is one of several South Jersey shopping complexes undergoing transformations.
