Voorhees vote clears way for mall's condemnation

VOORHEES - The Township Committee has approved the potential use of eminent domain to revive the former Echelon Mall.

Committee members voted unanimously Monday to designate several parts of Voorhees Town Center as “condemnation redevelopment areas.”

That means the township can go to court to force the sale of the largely vacant mall, a closed Macy’s store and a large parking area, said Mario DiNatale, the town’s director of community and business development.

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“We have the ability to condemn the property, if that is so desired,” DiNatale said after the vote.

He said the committee expects to hear proposals from three developers on new uses for the property off Somerdale and Burnt Mill roads.

“Hopefully, we’ll have the proposals in hand by the end of the month,” said DiNatale.

The condemnation area does not include a Boscov's store or a section of Voorhees Town Center that holds municipal offices and the Camden County Improvement Authority.

Also off limits: A strip of stores, restaurants and about 425 apartments erected in recent years as part of an earlier redevelopment effort.

A freestanding child-care center, The Learning Experience, would be part of the redevelopment zone but would not be subject to eminent domain,

A representative of the mall’s owner, Namdar Realty Group of Long Island, N.Y., could not be reached for comment.

Michael Friedman, the committee’s sole Republican, said he was easing his conservative view that government should stay out of private enterprise.

“Here we have an absentee owner who’s continued to let the entire mall slip into oblivion,” he observed. “There are times when government should step in and I think this is one of those times."

“We’ve been working on this for a long time,” noted Committeeman Harry Platt, a Democrat.

Committeeman Jason Ravitz said officials have pressed the mall's owner to make improvements for more than two years.

"We feel like we gave them enough time," Ravitz said in an interview Tuesday.

"We're taking a very aggressive stand. That's the way it's got to be," he said.

Officials did not disclose potential plans for the site, but Ravitz said "the consensus (among developers) is that demo(lition) of a large portion of the mall is going to be cost-prohibitive."

"They’re going to have to do things inside and outside," the committeeman said.

“A couple of the developers have asked for a small housing component,” he added.

The committee acted after the township planning board in March advanced a plan for the use of eminent domain at the struggling mall.

A report prepared for the planning board said the mall's vacancy rate was more than 40 percent and expected to rise after the closing of Macy's last year.

At least two tenants, Claire's and Finish Line, departed just days before the planning board's vote.

The two-story complex, which dates to 1970, has about 665,000 square feet of retail space, with large areas leased by medical and government offices.

If the township acquires the Namdar properties, either through a negotiated sale or eminent domain, it would then sell the same properties to a redeveloper so taxpayers would recover the price of the transaction, DiNatale said.

He noted the township is obtaining a third-party appraisal for the Namdar properties, which would be used as part of any condemnation process.

The Namdar sites have an assessed value of just over $14 million, he said.

Jim Walsh: @jimwalsh_cp; 856-486-2646; jwalsh@gannettnj.com

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