With some critics mollified, Haddon Twp. project gets OK

Town Center? Transit Village?

Urbanism?

Cutting-edge concepts like these are being brushed aside in Haddon Township, where the Planning Board Monday unanimously approved an old-fashioned, suburban-style apartment complex for downtown.

Though the project will bring several hundred residents to the business district, it seems unlikely to capitalize on the full potential of Haddon Avenue's biggest and best-ever redevelopment opportunity - and unlikely to help make Westmont's long, somewhat jumbled, and thoroughly car-centric main street more of a destination.

"I'm very happy," developer Art Corsini of Fieldstone Associates said after the meeting. "We're anxious to get started."

The Somerset County firm's plans call for a $52 million, 252-unit, seven-building rental complex with 373 parking spaces.

The board's 7-0 vote followed a presentation by architect Victor L. Barr Jr. of largely cosmetic changes to two of the seven buildings in the complex. The Haddon Avenue facades of both will be decorated "to give the impression of a series of individual attached buildings," Barr said.

Critics, including members of South Jersey Urbanists, a grassroots group that had lobbied for design changes and other improvements, said they were pleased.

"It looks a lot better," group leader and township resident Jason Miller said. "Much more urban."

Better, sure. But good enough?

Look, the leaders of the comfortable Camden County township of nearly 15,000 people have an understandable desire to get something built at long last on the weedy dead zone near the Westmont PATCO station.

Speaking as she prepared to cast her yes vote Monday, board member Maggie Downham noted that township officials began working on redevelopment plans for Haddon Avenue in 1999.

By the mid-2000s, the township had begun assembling the site, occupied by a former diaper-laundering firm and a cluster of small businesses, at a cost of $8.3 million.

The wide-open space in the heart of the Haddon Avenue corridor was dreamed about, fought over, and litigated (at a $1.1 million cost to taxpayers) for a decade. And for nearly as long, this theoretically prime piece of real estate has been entirely off the tax rolls.

Fieldstone will reimburse the township for the $8.3 million acquisition cost when it takes title to the site. But the township will finance part of the construction project with a $6 million infrastructure bond.

That amount is to be paid back, with interest, during a 30-year payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with Fieldstone. The township will realize an additional $15 million in revenue during the life of the PILOT agreement.

The complex also will include 25 low-income units; the addition of the affordable apartments is the result of a settlement this year between the township and the Fair Share Housing Center.

That's a good thing.

But the stingy amount of retail space - eight or so storefronts in what the township once envisioned as a mixed-use development akin to those enlivening tired downtowns nationwide - disappointed many, including me. (If demand is sufficient, these ground-floor apartments could be converted to storefronts later on, Fieldstone representatives said.)

Nearly 400 people had responded to a survey about the project on the NJPen.com website, with a majority saying the plans should be improved.

In an interview earlier in the day, a township resident and critic of the original plan, Tom Cassel - who seemed pleased by the facade alterations - noted that "this project has been on the table for 12 years. The buildings will be there for 100 years. It should be done right."

I agree.

But the feeling on the board Monday seemed to be that the township had done too much work and come too far along in the process to turn away from the Fieldstone plan.

The firm deserves credit for trying to accommodate some of the public's requests for changes.

But to me, even with the improved facades, this doesn't look like the game-changing, signature development the heart of Haddon Township has been waiting for.

kriordan@phillynews.com

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