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I've seen this comment repeated in several responses throughout the threads on the forum. My question is to the people who think this. How is it going downhill? How did it peak? Why did it peak?
-They just built the Virtua hospital, with Jefferson's CHOP, that has brought jobs and people to the town, as well as construction of several medical places (and planned businesses in that hub)
-Both Eagle / Ritz and Ceder Hill Plaza's offer many retail options for the township
-The Town Center is up and coming, with high-end restaurants and businesses popping up.
-The "Shop Voorhees" campaign is underway.
On the contrary, I see this township booming right now.
I don't know about it going downhill. I think, if anything, it has a lot of desirable aspects.
But from a retail perspective/"Shop Voorhees", the White Horse Rd. "Echelon" area corridor could use some help with a vacant Bally's Fitness building and Genuardi's building. Any plans? Even the Target is a little substandard but not a big deal. The mall though, esp. with the restaurants, seems to be fine under PREIT.
I think that I saw some construction where the old Fuddruckers building used to be, but I was making a right turn out of Eagle Plaza and that plaza doesn't allow left turns so I didn't get to really drive by it. Maybe it'll be a Starbucks? Coffee Works closed it's second not long lasted Voorhees Town Ctr. site.
It'd be great if chains like Bertucci's (replacing the old diner on 561), Starbucks (replacing Fuddruckers), Anytime Fitness and Modell's Sporting Goods (subdivided to both replace Genuardi's), new office space (replacing Bally's) opened up in the White Horse Rd. corridor. It'd definitely help it. Eagle recently got Chipotle, and it has a Ross, and that plaza looks healthy again.
I don't know about it going downhill. I think if anything it has a lot of desirable aspects.
But from a retail perspective, the White Horse Rd. "Echelon" area corridor could use some help with a vacant Bally's Fitness building and Genuardi's building. Even the Target is a little substandard but not a big deal. The mall though, esp. with the restaurants, seems to be fine under PREIT.
I think that I saw some construction by the old Fuddruckers building, but I was making a right turn out of Eagle Plaza and that plaza doesn't allow left turns there. Maybe it'll be a Starbucks?
Maybe the Echelon Village plaza owner should tear down that site and look for other ways of redevelopment. The CH and Marlton Genuardi's closed by Genuardi's later and are already refilled while the Voorhees one AFAIK is still unoccopied. Thre is already ShopRite not too far off Evesham Rd so it's unlikely it or another grocery store will do an easy move in.
Maybe they need chains like Bertucci's, Starbucks (over Dunkin Donuts) and more chains. Coffee Works closed down it's second store in the Voorhees Town Center.
From what I heard (from co-workers and such, nothing official) is that they are building another Chick-fil-A in the Fuddruckers location on White Horse Rd. Why they would build a second restaurant or move the one that's in the mall is beyond me.
I also heard that they were planning on building an Olive Garden where the fitness center used to be in front of Ceder Hill Plaza, but instead turned it in to a rehab facility. There's also some rumblings of adding a Starbucks to a vacant space in Ceder Hill, as well. That would be great, because you have a spa right next door to there (plus the traffic in that area is often very high). I actually work in that plaza, and I can tell you that people from as far away as Shamong and Hammonton shop there, so it's a missed market on Starbucks' part if they decide not to go through with it.
I think the definitely need to develop more around the hospital, though. As stated, you have many people visiting friends and relatives there, so they're going to need a place to dine / shop when visiting. They're also in the process of building a new rehab center next to Library II and also even further down on the township line in Evesham. There's a lot of potential with that hospital being where it is.
Problem with building more retail around the hospital campus on Rt. 73, is that this road is already one of the most congested arteries in South Jersey so you will probably have a lot of Voorhees/Evesham NIMBY types opposing it. I really have not ventured into the vicinity around Echelon Mall since they revamped it into the town center.
A trend I have noticed on these boards is that when people use the term "going downhill" when referring to a community, they usually mean the "creep" of elements from undesirable areas into town. And certain neighborhoods on that side of town have seen better days, since they are very close to undesirable areas like Lindenwold and parts of Berlin, and I know a few apartment complexes like Echelon Glen and the Club at Main Street have gotten a lot of section 8 residents straight out of Camden. My town gets the same kind of rep for this, but this is no reason to avoid it as a whole. And as I have posted in recent threads about my town (North Brunswick), just about any place has an underbelly if you care look for it, so you just avoid that particular part of town. No reason to avoid the whole town because of one small area.
I also think Voorhees gets a bad rep because it feeds into a regional high school that also gets kids from lesser desirable areas and parents worry about who their children will mix with. It obviously is not mayberry, but even Eastern Regional HS is a helluva lot better than Overbrook, Winslow and even the Black Horse Pike Reg. HS's among others. You still really cannot go wrong in the town.
Problem with building more retail around the hospital campus on Rt. 73, is that this road is already one of the most congested arteries in South Jersey so you will probably have a lot of Voorhees/Evesham NIMBY types opposing it. I really have not ventured into the vicinity around Echelon Mall since they revamped it into the town center.
A trend I have noticed on these boards is that when people use the term "going downhill" when referring to a community, they usually mean the "creep" of elements from undesirable areas into town. And certain neighborhoods on that side of town have seen better days, since they are very close to undesirable areas like Lindenwold and parts of Berlin, and I know a few apartment complexes like Echelon Glen and the Club at Main Street have gotten a lot of section 8 residents straight out of Camden. My town gets the same kind of rep for this, but this is no reason to avoid it as a whole. And as I have posted in recent threads about my town (North Brunswick), just about any place has an underbelly if you care look for it, so you just avoid that particular part of town. No reason to avoid the whole town because of one small area.
I also think Voorhees gets a bad rep because it feeds into a regional high school that also gets kids from lesser desirable areas and parents worry about who their children will mix with. It obviously is not mayberry, but even Eastern Regional HS is a helluva lot better than Overbrook, Winslow and even the Black Horse Pike Reg. HS's among others. You still really cannot go wrong in the town.
I know I'm going to contradict myself severely from my other thread regarding mass transit, but is it a feasible, sensible idea to widen 73 from Kresson to Signal Hill to 3rd lane? That strip seems to be open enough, with it's building far away from the highway that could allow expansion of one lane on both sides. Would it even put a dent into the traffic there, especially during rush hour?
And to the second part of your response, that makes sense. Although, every "nice town" has it's sections that aren't good. I used to work with a woman from Evesham who was married to a cop who worked in the town and she'd tell us how there's a lot of crime that swept under the rug (not reported in the papers) - mostly drug related violations, though. And I'm sure it's the same in other towns, a higher percentage in certain areas.
I also don't get the attitude toward Eastern. I mean, Berlin Borough and Gibbsboro are pretty well off, income wise, compared to nearby towns. I actually graduated from Eastern about 5 years ago and the kids from each town are basically the same. And the cliques that were formed combined students from all three towns . So, in other words, if the school just took Voorhees kids, you'd get the same cliques. I also remember reading different posts about "gang activity" at Eastern. Huh?! The 4 years I was there, we were not informed of such a thing - I'd like to know where the people on this board got that information. It's in the top 5 percentile of all South Jersey schools on most categories in South Jersey magazine - unless you're REALLY that anal, there's no need to complain. We have some of the best public schools in the country here. I'll get off my soap box, now (Viking pride, I guess :P )
From what I heard (from co-workers and such, nothing official) is that they are building another Chick-fil-A in the Fuddruckers location on White Horse Rd. Why they would build a second restaurant or move the one that's in the mall is beyond me.
I also heard that they were planning on building an Olive Garden where the fitness center used to be in front of Ceder Hill Plaza, but instead turned it in to a rehab facility. There's also some rumblings of adding a Starbucks to a vacant space in Ceder Hill, as well. That would be great, because you have a spa right next door to there (plus the traffic in that area is often very high). I actually work in that plaza, and I can tell you that people from as far away as Shamong and Hammonton shop there, so it's a missed market on Starbucks' part if they decide not to go through with it.
I think the definitely need to develop more around the hospital, though. As stated, you have many people visiting friends and relatives there, so they're going to need a place to dine / shop when visiting. They're also in the process of building a new rehab center next to Library II and also even further down on the township line in Evesham. There's a lot of potential with that hospital being where it is.
I kind of wonder what chains would move down past Evesham on 73. Would there be available land before Berlin Twp. for something like a Wegmans?
Re: Chick Fil A. Maybe it will move out of the mall for the freestanding site, or keep both locations. Don't they have two in the west side of CH?
I became a member of this forum to respond to absurd comments about Voorhees and Eastern that other posters made. For some reason, the town gets a lot of unwarranted negative attention on this website. I really have no idea why.
Keep in mind when suggesting national restaurant chains to come in that a big limiting factor is Liquor License availability... standard licenses are based on town population. An exception used recently in Voorhees is the "hotels with more than 100 rooms". I was just googling and see that the Hampton Inn was recently awarded one, and a new hotel at the Diamond Diner location was also. I'm sure they could work it out to have an on-site national restaurant in the hotel to use the license... but that doesnt help an empty Fuddruckers no-hotel spot.
Whats up with that Diner across from Eagle Point Plaza?
I haven't been through there lately... is it still sitting there empty?
A trend I have noticed on these boards is that when people use the term "going downhill" when referring to a community, they usually mean the "creep" of elements from undesirable areas into town. And certain neighborhoods on that side of town have seen better days, since they are very close to undesirable areas like Lindenwold and parts of Berlin, and I know a few apartment complexes like Echelon Glen and the Club at Main Street have gotten a lot of section 8 residents straight out of Camden. My town gets the same kind of rep for this, but this is no reason to avoid it as a whole. And as I have posted in recent threads about my town (North Brunswick), just about any place has an underbelly if you care look for it, so you just avoid that particular part of town. No reason to avoid the whole town because of one small area.
This has a lot to do with it. Voorhees has always been a more mixed community both racially and socio-economically. It's like a smaller Cherry Hill in that regard. You have some pockets of highend wealth and expensive homes and at the same time you have areas of dumpy Section 8 rentals.
I think a lot of the flak people give Voorhees also comes from some of the attitudes portrayed by the residents. I used to live in the town and still own a rental there. I've heard plenty of people talking about how "Voorhees is nicer and richer then Moorestown"...well it's not. Neither is Marlton for that matter and some of them have the same attitude. I think it's the inflated image that some try to portray that leads people to want to point out the worse aspects of the town.
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I also think Voorhees gets a bad rep because it feeds into a regional high school that also gets kids from lesser desirable areas and parents worry about who their children will mix with. It obviously is not mayberry, but even Eastern Regional HS is a helluva lot better than Overbrook, Winslow and even the Black Horse Pike Reg. HS's among others. You still really cannot go wrong in the town.
Agreed, it's not a bad town and the schools are good with the exception of the one elementary school near the Town Center which takes in all the apartment kids. The high school isn't the "best" but it's also solidly above average and way better than some of the surrounding regional schools.
I kind of wonder what chains would move down past Evesham on 73. Would there be available land before Berlin Twp. for something like a Wegmans?
While the area needs a store like Wegmans, I honestly don't think there's enough room. The last bit of land that could have been used for it is beginning to be developed on the Rt. 73 North between Kresson and Evesham roads (including ANOTHER Dunkin Donuts!). And even if there was no development going on there, I still don't think there'd be enough room.
If another Wegmans was going to be built in the area, developers would need to look at southern Berlin or Winslow, I think.
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