PEMBERTON TWP. — Demolition is to start next year on the Browns Mills Shopping Center, a property that township officials have wanted redeveloped for decades.
On Monday, real estate developer Felix Bruselovsky said three key tenants are lined up so far: Wawa, which will open one of its super-stores with gas pumps; Grocery Outlet, a California-based chain of small supermarkets; and fast food chain restaurant Taco Bell.
Bruselovsky said those three types of retail were what township officials wanted.
“And that’s what we went after,” he added.
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Bruselovsky is the owner of New Horizon Properties, an Englishtown-based real estate firm. Pemberton Township officials chose the firm as its designated redeveloper for the property, which it acquired approximately six years ago.
Members of the township's planning board approved the demolition as part of a site plan reviewed at their meeting Dec. 3. The plan’s proposed convenience store and restaurant are both to have drive-thru lanes, which are conditional uses under that area’s zoning.
The center is off two Burlington County-owned roads. The project also has conditional approval from the county, Bruselovsky said.
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Built in 1961, the shopping center is at 100 Pemberton-Browns Mills Road, next to Juliustown Road. It is within a township redevelopment zone.
The center previously was owned by Rocco Berardi, with whom township officials had a long-running and contentious relationship.
Berardi filed a lawsuit in state court against Pemberton Township in March 2017, alleging it improperly took actions that had damaged his business. As of 2016 the lawsuit stated that approximately 14 or 17 storefronts were vacant.
The lawsuit in part claimed the township had facilitated Acme, the “anchor tenant” at the center, to relocate in 1996 to nearby Pine Grove Shopping Center. The case was at last dismissed in July 2018 after a settlement was reached, according to county Superior Court documents.
Browns Mills an unincorporated community of approximately 5.6 square miles just south of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.
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