A hotel and office plan at Garden State Park, abandoned when the real estate market tanked, could become home to a Costco under plans currently under review at the township.

The members-only warehouse club is proposing a 157,845-square-foot store for Cherry Hill, along with about 18,500 square feet of pad sites, for what township officials referred to as the Turnberry property—18.5 acres along the New Jersey Transit rail line, just west of Home Depot, that's sat undeveloped since the racetrack came down. Though the plans are in—a foot-thick sheaf of documents, from traffic studies to the actual site plan currently sit in the township's office of community development—it could be some time before the retail giant would get its shot to score the planning board's approval.

Paul Stridick, Cherry Hill's planning director, wouldn't speculate on a timeline for getting to that point, saying he and others will first need to go through what Costco is proposing. "I really don't know yet, because we've just begun that process," he said. "We need to get it out to all of our consultants…and really get under the hood on it."

One thing is for sure, though—if it makes it that far, the township will require the store to blend in with the overall brick-and-masonry theme of the Garden State Park development thus far. "That's one of the things we're absolutely concerned about, that it really fit in appropriately," Stridick said. "It's not going to be just a metal box."

Still, just the chance bringing Costco to the township is a positive, officials said, and getting use out of a property that has lain fallow for a decade is a big win.

"We're really excited about the possibility," spokeswoman Bridget Palmer said.

Though the original plan for the site included roughly a million square feet of office space and a 150-room hotel, it never materialized—and was unlikely to ever be complete, given current conditions, officials said. "I don't know anybody who's even built 100,000 square feet of office space," Stridick said. "That's kind of ambitious for this time. It's good to get a proposal for that property."