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The Willingboro Town Center: On the site formerly known as Willingboro Plaza, a dormant retail complex, the Willingboro Town Center development plan will create a mix of retail and commercial establishments, adult housing and community-oriented institutions. The Town Center will be located on a 56-acre parcel of land in the Township of Willingboro, a community of approximately 40,000 people in the center of Burlington County, New Jersey. Since the Township is virtually built-out, the only option for economic growth is to redevelop properties that are currently under-utilized. The Town Center is an example of this plan at work. The site of the new Town Center was once a shopping center which was closed completely in 1990. Since that time, the abandoned plaza has deteriorated and the unused site along this main highway has provided no economic benefits to Willingboro Township. With the imminent redevelopment of the site, the Township is looking forward to a prosperous Town Center that will attract residents from the surrounding municipalities, and encourage them to view the area as a desirable place to shop, work, and live. It will also provide hundreds of jobs for the area’s residents and will become a very functional hub for the community, providing a unified and accessible group of facilities that will serve various public needs. This project embodies the State of New Jersey’s Redevelopment Plan, aimed at transforming unused parcels of land into economically useful assets. Simultaneously, the redevelopment plan embraces the principles of environmental protection and enhancement, seeking to use land resources efficiently. As the Willingboro Township Engineers, LWR has been working on this project for more than 2 years. The firm has secured two grants for the project totaling $507,500. These funds have come from a NJDOT Transportation Enhancement Grant and a Tree Planting Grant from the NJDEP’s Division of Parks and Forestry’s Community Forestry Program. Large companies are now viewing the area as a high-quality location for their office space. For example, Merck-Medco Pharmaceuticals now has an office in the Center that, when filled to capacity, will provide jobs for 800 people. In addition, many commercial retailers have begun to rent space with the idea that this new Town Center will bring hundreds of people by their stores everyday. The Town Center project has the full support of Willingboro’s Town Council and of Burlington County’s officials. Local Senator, Diane Allen, has also voiced her encouragement and support of the project that will become a model for other communities throughout the region. Construction is now well underway with much of the infrastructure and site work for the new buildings completed. The Center is expected to be completed by late in the Fall of this year. |