The township has worked for years to get two downtown properties redeveloped.
HADDON TWP. -- Ask Mayor Randall Teague how he feels about the Haddon Towne Center mixed-use development going up along Haddon Avenue, and he'll use the word "excited." But it's in a rather subdued, somewhat weary way.
That's because the $52.8 million project has been planned, negotiated, litigated and redesigned for about 16 years. If the project was a teenager, it could get its learner's permit.
"We're excited that there's finally something being built there," Teague said. "It was a compromise to get the project going."
Originally, the project included 201 luxury condos and 25,000 square feet of retail, the latter of which town officials hoped would fill a "hole of vacant and industrial properties" on that stretch of Haddon Avenue. What's being built now is 252 high-end apartments in seven buildings, with half of the original retail space.
Less than a half-mile away, another redevelopment project is underway -- again, thanks to compromise.
The Westmont Theatre at 49 Haddon Ave. Sept. 10, 2016. A historic theater being turned into a gym may not be everyone's idea of a success story, but township officials are pleased that something is being done with the Westmont Theatre.
The township sold the dilapidated, vacant theater to Lazgor LLC for $50,000 and the Cherry Hill company is "going to spend millions" fixing it up, Teague said.
The building's facade and marquee will be preserved and restored in accordance with the state and national Historic Register rules. A Planet Fitness with a 10-year lease will open inside, maybe as early as November, Teague said.
"We tried for years to keep it as a theater," he said, but no developers were interested in shelling out around $5 million to renovate a 1,200-seat theater.
It's easy to dream up the consummate projects for the consummate downtown, but after a while, reality sets in.
"Everybody wanted to make it the perfect, ideal development for Haddon Township. Everyone had the township's best interests at heart," Teague said of the Towne Center project. "I think at the end of the day there is relief that construction is going on."
A downtown dream
Township officials began looking at how to redevelop the stretch of Haddon Avenue between Center Street and East Crystal Lake Avenue -- less than a five-minute walk to Westmont PATCO Station -- as early as 1999.
They chose Fieldstone Associates' designs for a condominium and retail development and signed a contract.
The biggest piece of the property was the long-closed Dy-Dee Diaper facility. After signing the contract, the township worked to acquire the other parcels to create a five-acre property for the project, sometimes with resistance from the owners.
Teague said the township also had to do environmental assessments and in some cases, remediate contamination issues.
"That process took a long time," Teague said. "And during that time, the real estate markets crashed and the financial markets crashed. It was financially unfeasible to go forward" with the condo and retail development.
Rehab center not coming to Haddonfield
A lawsuit filed by the Fair Share Housing Center in Cherry Hill in 2011 was the next hold-up. The center argued that Haddon Township was required to include affordable rental units in the project, while Fieldstone and the township believed that it had already met its affordable housing obligation.
Teague said the suit cost taxpayers about $1 million in legal and professional fees.
While they were still litigating, Fieldstone Associates in 2014 presented new plans for the development that included only apartments. Residents and town officials were not pleased that the downtown storefronts they had envisioned had been scrapped.
The settlement that Fieldstone, the Fair Housing Center and the township ultimately came up with in 2015 laid out the current plan for 252 rental units, 25 of which are designated affordable, with 12,500 in retail space on the first floor facing Haddon Avenue.
Finally building
Art Corsini, a developer at Fieldstone Associates, said the Doylestown, Penn. limited partnership is "very, very excited" that construction has begun on Haddon Avenue.
"It's going to be a wonderful project," he said this week.
Construction on the site started in early 2016. Now, passersby can see the elevator shafts that will serve the four- or five-story buildings, as well as the concrete, steel and wood beginnings of several buildings. The clubhouse is further along -- it has walls, windows and a roof. There will be a total of 474 parking spaces.
Fieldstone will build and manage the development, as it has at sites around New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Corsini said that the high-end apartments will be ready for occupancy by sometime in the first quarter of 2017.
Westmont bakery opens new location
Besides their nice apartments, residents will have access to an outdoor pool, fire pits, and inside the clubhouse, a fitness center and coffee bar. Potential renters are already registering for apartments at HaddonTowneCenter.com, he said.
He said the first-floor retail space could be one or many storefronts, depending on the needs of the leasee. "We haven't leased it yet but we've had quite a few calls," he said.
Now the Towne Center project is off the ground, Fieldstone is reimbursing the township for the $8 million it borrowed to acquire the properties that make up the site. The municipality also funded a $6 million infrastructure bond that Fieldstone will have to pay back.
The developers and Haddon Township have agreed to a $15 million, 30-year payment in lieu of taxes arrangement that will benefit both sides, Teague said. Since the township will get 95 percent of the payment each year, it will pocket more than it would in regular property taxes, split with the county and schools.
Plus, Teague said, it's a lot better than the amount of taxes collected on the site while the project was delayed: Zero.
"It took us a long time to get there and it was the result of many compromises on everyone's part," he said.
Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.