Future of Cherry Hill? (Camden, Atlantic City: school district, inspector, subdivision)

[Sassygirl18]

I just want to say, I LOVE MAGGIANO'S! I hope you guys are right that Maggiano's is coming to the CH Mall.

Has anyone tried Bahama Breeze? I love that place, especially their coconut shrimp and their cocktails are awesome.

[shannybannany]

We went to the Bahama Breeze in the CH mall. It was like just okay. I'm not really into that kind of food though.

Shanny

[solibs]

FYI - low density, single-use zoning is also called sprawl. It's the opposite of smart growth.

The original plans for the old Garden State Racetrack were actually pretty progressive and would've looked a lot like an actual downtown. CH residents flipped their lids when they saw it and brought enough political pressure to bear that the original plans were changed dramatically. They cut off their noses to spite their faces. Instead of having a mostly self-contained semi-urban village that drew a moderate amount of outside traffic you now have another regional shopping center that not only draws a lot of trips from outside of a 5 mile radius but it also encourages internal trips as well.

I'm reserving final judgement until it's built out but for right now, it's not looking so good.

and to reiterate- expanding highway capacity means that you make room for more cars. If you make room for more cars on Route 70 or Route 38 you'll then have to make more room for them on every road/intersection that they cross.

If you want less traffic drive less, carpool or take the bus. Widening roads only makes more traffic.

[JoeSo]

Originally Posted by Sassygirl18

I just want to say, I LOVE MAGGIANO'S! I hope you guys are right that Maggiano's is coming to the CH Mall.

Has anyone tried Bahama Breeze? I love that place, especially their coconut shrimp and their cocktails are awesome.

Tried Bahama Breeze but didn't care for the 'caribbean' deal of mixing sweet & sour...just not my thing

I was to Maggiano's in KOP,the food was good but the crowd was a little too pretentious for me...like it was the place to be 'seen'...
Of course there's also the location in Philly itself...
Perhaps with that it'd be better off in Marlton,even the Champps down there looked a little 'niteclubby'

[DITC]

Someone in here has good eyes. I drove by this shopping center on my way to Philadelphia and was shocked as to how horrendous it looks. It is not a town center or whatever you want to sell it as. It is sunbelt style development that does nothing for the community except give people another excuse to guzzle gas in their suv to go spend money and contribute to the corporations that plague this country.

I remembered hearing they were knocking down the race track (something with actual history) for some downtown type development and was thinking someone in New Jersey might have achieved the first smart development plan post 1950. Wow what a disappointment from New Jersey yet again.

People in the suburbs think that traffic will be minimized by always expanding lanes. More lanes only makes things worse. Cutting traffic can only happen by good transportation and people moving efficiently. In New Jersey there are not many town centers where people could pick up a bus, instead I see bus stops on sides of random roads. An actual town center in Cherry Hill could have blended in with surrounding neighborhoods where the race track used to be. People could have walked to a nice walkable "new" downtown area with stores, buses, etc. Instead the project added to the feeling of shopping centers every ten feet with people scrambling all over the place to turn off at the last second. Whoever designed this and whoever passed this vote are absolute idiots.

Originally Posted by solibs

FYI - low density, single-use zoning is also called sprawl. It's the opposite of smart growth.

The original plans for the old Garden State Racetrack were actually pretty progressive and would've looked a lot like an actual downtown. CH residents flipped their lids when they saw it and brought enough political pressure to bear that the original plans were changed dramatically. They cut off their noses to spite their faces. Instead of having a mostly self-contained semi-urban village that drew a moderate amount of outside traffic you now have another regional shopping center that not only draws a lot of trips from outside of a 5 mile radius but it also encourages internal trips as well.

I'm reserving final judgement until it's built out but for right now, it's not looking so good.

and to reiterate- expanding highway capacity means that you make room for more cars. If you make room for more cars on Route 70 or Route 38 you'll then have to make more room for them on every road/intersection that they cross.

If you want less traffic drive less, carpool or take the bus. Widening roads only makes more traffic.

[Gerania]

solibs said: "I'm reserving final judgement until it's built out but for right now, it's not looking so good."

Ah, you're just trying to be generous. I, like you, was hoping for more. So much for mixed housing and a walkable downtown atmosphere. They could have done so much more with it. We knew that we were doomed when we saw the boxes going up.

I think that searching for information about the project is what lead me to join this board. I remember a post about the chainsaws felling trees, day, after day, after day.

Home Depot jumped from on plaza to another leaving an empty store? I'm sure the maneuver was to stop Lowe's from moving in.

There are too many stores, nothing original, too many people going there.

That place is not for me.

[solibs]

You're right, i am just trying to be nice. I have a friend who's been working on that project for the last 3 years. She insists that when the housing component is finished it will have a much different feel.

I'll wait. Then i'll tell her it sucks.

Originally Posted by Gerania

Home Depot jumped from on plaza to another leaving an empty store? I'm sure the maneuver was to stop Lowe's from moving in.

There are too many stores, nothing original, too many people going there.

That place is not for me.

I have a feeling that the shops that are left over in the Garden State Plaza (the other side of the tracks where the Home Depot used to be) are going to wind up on the new side, that old stuff will be demolished and something that is truly mixed-use and oriented towards the train station will grow up in its place.

The whole thing is just outrageous to me. Look at what Collingswood is doing on 1/20 the space. I mean, in one project they're increasing their downtown retail space by 25% and there's a condo above every single store. And that's only Phase 1 of a three part downtown project.

Also, i'm not sure if anyone else has ever been to "the Walk" in Atlantic City. It's not mixed use, essentially it's an outlet mall, but it fits into the fabric of the city. They could've very easily made it look like what's going up in Cherry Hill but they choose a more pedestrian oriented model. There's still plenty of parking, it's just off at the edges of the development instead of right there in the middle.

relevant article here in the SF Examiner
www.sfexaminer.com >> Local News

SAN FRANCISCO – The Potrero Center on 16th Street — a rarity in San Francisco with its large parking spaces and strip-mall-style lineup of chain stores — is about to receive an urban makeover.
Today, the Planning Commission will consider an amendment to the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan that will allow owners of the shopping center — home to Safeway, an Office Depot, a half-dozen other big-box stores and hundreds of parking spaces — to build several stories of housing units on top of the current retail buildings . . .

[JoeSo]

Originally Posted by Gerania

Home Depot jumped from on plaza to another leaving an empty store? I'm sure the maneuver was to stop Lowe's from moving in.

That shopping center looks pretty empty over there with just ShopRite and Petco,I wonder what the plan is for that.

[Sassygirl18]

As a resident of Cherry Hill, here is what I would like to know:

With all these huge retail establishments going up, shouldn't our property taxes GO DOWN? I assume these businesses will be paying taxes, right?

[JerzBoy]

I am very disappointed with the race-track redevelopment as well. With such a large piece of land they could have made it look much more like a traditional town center - kind of like what they did in Reston, Virginia or VA Beach. Instead its just a wasteland of big box sprawl with acres of parking lots in front. Doesn't seem very pedestrian friendly to me.