Not just warehouses: Residential, retail, hotel development also planned at Burlington’s mall site

The Burlington Center’s closing in 2018 and its demolition three years later left Burlington Township with 270 acres of vacant land along busy Route 541 — and more than a few questions.

“We had to find out what would be the right fit for the property, the township, our residents, and the region,” Mayor E.L. Pete Green said.

Six years later, answers are taking shape in the form of three warehouses, as well as a half-dozen restaurants and retail shops at a development called The Crossings.

Site preparation has begun on a $125 million, 500-unit rental complex that will include 100 affordable apartments. Plans for a five-story, 143-room extended- and short-term-stay hotel have been approved as well.

A grocery store or other additional retail development also is possible, the mayor said.

The Moorestown Mall and similar shopping centers in the region are adding apartments, health-care facilities, and other nontraditional elements. But warehouses in proximity to what the developer describes as an upscale, amenity-rich, class A multifamily community is unusual.

“This is smart, responsible development because the infrastructure was already there, with roads that were designed in a way to accommodate large-scale projects,” said Drew Chapman, senior vice president and partner with the Jefferson Apartment Group of McClean, Va., which is developing the rental community.

The 40-acre J Centra Burlington development site “gives distance from the warehouses,” he said. “There is so much space, with walking trails, two pools, and gazebos, that it creates its own environment.”

Baltimore-based MRP Industrial, along with Clarion Partners of Dallas, is overseeing the $200 million, 1.5 million square feet of warehouse space. Two buildings are leased, one is available, and construction of a fourth is expected next year. The two firms are the project’s master developers.

“We’ve been building warehouses long before that was in vogue,” MRP managing principal Dan Hudson said.

While it’s “not typical to mix” warehouses and retail uses, he said, township leaders very much wanted retail incorporated into the overall project. The development is the work of the Florida-based Ferber Co.

» READ MORE: First warehouses and now restaurants are rising on former mall site in Burlington Township

“In this case we had to marry our interests with those of the township, which had lost a mall,” Hudson said.

“They were not going to approve a development of 100% warehouses,” he said. “Clearly, we had an interest, and the township had an interest in seeing what was once a vibrant location become vibrant again.”

From farmland to suburbia

With fewer than 4,000 residents in 1950, Burlington Township was 14 square miles of farms and hamlets until Burlington County began suburbanizing in the 1960s. The township’s 1980 population of 11,527 had nearly doubled to 22,294 by 2010 and stood at 24,108 in 2023, according to the U.S. Census.

What put the township on the map was the opening of the Burlington Center, a two-level mall that eventually included Philadelphia’s beloved Strawbridge & Clothier, two other department stores, and 100 smaller shops. It became a focal point of community activities, and, a sculpture of an elephant named Petal became a popular gathering place.

» READ MORE: Saved from a doomed mall, Petal the Elephant still needs a home

But as happened at the Echelon Mall in Voorhees and other malls across the country, Burlington Center began losing tenants after the 2008 economic crash and as brick-and-mortar retailing struggled amid the rising popularity of online shopping. Macy’s left Burlington Center in 2010, and the mall continued its slow-motion death spiral until 2018.

Tim Evans, director of research for New Jersey Future, an organization that advocates for smart growth in the state, said large tracts of car-dependent suburban land are challenging to retrofit as traditional town centers.

He also said he wasn’t aware of efforts to incorporate retail, market-rate housing, affordable housing, and other uses in warehouse developments in New Jersey.

“But it’s interesting that this piece of land is located in a spot where all of these uses make sense to incorporate,” said Evans, adding that mixing affordable and market-rate units in the new apartment community at the Crossings is noteworthy.

The development is one of the larger in Burlington County and South Jersey in terms of the number of affordable units, said Esme Devenney, a staff attorney with the Fair Share Housing Center. Like the majority of municipalities in the state, Burlington Township has signed a legally binding agreement to provide housing at below-market rates to income-eligible renters and buyers.

Neighbors have concerns

“The mall was beautifully landscaped and was just a nice, well-maintained place,” longtime township resident Chuck McConnell said.

“Now they’ve bulldozed it for warehouses that look like plastic buildings on a Monopoly board,” said McConnell, a retiree who remembers when the land where two warehouses now stand was known as Hancock’s Farm.

McConnell resides in the Wyngate neighborhood not far from the J Centra construction site and said he understands that the township must provide affordable housing. Nevertheless, he said, he’s worried about maintaining the neighborhood’s property values.

Longtime resident Lisa Vaughn said she has heard similar concerns among some local homeowners — “although I’m sure a lot of people are for” the apartment complex.

A dental hygienist who lives in the Hancock Hollow neighborhood, Vaughn said she “would rather see something happening than have the old mall” sitting there.

She also likes the idea of upscale apartments coming, as well as the prospect of a hotel.

“But let’s get some more retail,” Vaughn said.

Not looking for a new downtown

Green has fond memories of the mall, but he said the redevelopment project is not an attempt to create a town center.

“Burlington City is our downtown,” he said.

The mayor also said truck traffic to and from the warehouses would be prohibited in the township’s residential areas. The site represents “the last big chunk” of available land in a town that has not seen a large-scale multifamily housing development in many years.

“I’m looking forward to cutting the ribbons,” said Green.