Heyer, Gruel & Associates prepared a Redevelopment Plan for the Moorestown Mall in close collaboration with Township Staff and Officials. The 475,000 square foot mall was built in the early 1960s and is an example of a typical department store anchored enclosed shopping mall that became one of the predominant retail models in the region. In recent years, however, several of the mall’s anchor tenants left, which led to substantial vacancy and the opportunity for redevelopment.

The mall was included in the Township’s Housing Element and Fair Share Plan as a potential site to address a portion of the Township’s “unmet need” housing obligation. HGA and the Township worked closely with the property owner to develop a multiple phase redevelopment approach that would convert a portion of the mall square footage to a state of the art medical campus and allow for construction of several new uses in portions of the parking lot. One phase of the project was a multi-family housing development to address a portion of the outstanding housing obligation and provide a balance of uses on the site to the future benefit of the commercial tenants. Another phase permits the development of a full-service hotel. Later phases envision potential additional residential units that could replace portions of the retail square footage.

The Plan placed an emphasis on updating the mall site through sustainable design practices, green infrastructure, enhanced landscaping, modernized lighting, building systems efficiency measures, bicycle and pedestrian connections within the mall complex and to neighboring properties, and aesthetic upgrades throughout the site.

The Moorestown Mall Redevelopment Plan is an example of adaptive reuse of an aging commercial center that could translate to locations throughout New Jersey and the broader region. Infill redevelopment like that proposed in the Plan is an example of planning best practices that allows for reuse of existing infrastructure and protects undeveloped land and sensitive environmental features from development pressure.

In 2023, the Moorestown Mall Redevelopment Plan won the NJ American Planning Association Innovation in Planning Award. Through the process, the property owner and Cooper Medical explored the possibility of adaptively reusing the former Sears anchor tenant space on the mall’s north side as a state-of-the-art outpatient medical facility. As a result, the Plan evolved to include medical use while retaining the inclusionary housing phases, incorporation a future hotel site, repositioning portions of the mall’s commercial space, and creating new pad sites within the parking lot.

This project represents the exciting repositioning of a “stranded asset” through a collaborative public-private partnership.