Community Corner

Division Over Referendums on Display During PREIT Teleconference

Tele-town hall showed there are still plenty of skeptics/critics ahead of Tuesday's vote.

PREIT president Joe Coradino faced a somewhat less friendly crowd Wednesday night during a second teleconference for Moorestown residents to ask questions ahead of .

PREIT (Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust), which owns the Moorestown Mall, at the beginning of October. Approximately 650 Moorestown residents were on that call, and of those who chimed in with questions or comments, the majority were supportive, or at the very least neutral.

Wednesday’s call however was more balanced between the pro- and anti-liquor contingents, perhaps painting a clearer picture of how Tuesday’s vote will split.

The call, which went out to roughly 4,200 Moorestown households—all registered voters with listed phone numbers—started positively for Coradino, with one resident espousing his support for PREIT’s efforts.

“I can’t for the life of me understand why people are so objectionable to what you’re trying to do,” the man said. “I don’t understand the big deal, cause a couple hundred feet behind the mall you’ve got bars in Mount Laurel.”

However, on the heels of the first caller’s comments came a woman who stated she was “absolutely against alcohol in Moorestown” and asked Coradino how much .

Reports filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) by Property Tax Relief for Moorestown, PREIT’s referenda campaign committee, show PREIT contributed $125,000 to its campaign and had spent $57,000 as of Oct. 11 (according to the report), with an additional $150,000 “outstanding obligation” for legal services. On Wednesday’s call however, Coradino stated the company has spent about $300,000.

“You’ve got to factor in, we’ve got over $100 million invested in this mall,” he explained. “(Spending that much money) is a sound decision from our perspective, and one that we don’t look back on.”

Another resident, Robert Cooper, told Coradino he felt like, “As a resident, I feel I’m being sold a bill of goods for your property.”

One woman, voicing one of the concerns of many of the opposition members, said, “People are naive to believe that the integrity of downtown Moorestown will remain once you open the door for alcohol in Moorestown. I am sure there will be that will eventually succeed that will allow alcohol sales in downtown.”

Throughout the call, Coradino asserted that PREIT’s goal was to limit liquor licenses to the mall and explained that, despite claims to the contrary, the second referendum question (which ostensibly would restrict alcohol sales to mall restaurants) was enforceable based on similar restrictions in other towns, like Harrison Township in Gloucester County, and on advice from PREIT’s own attorneys.

A couple new pieces of information emerged from the call:

  • PREIT is “well along in negotiations with an additional celebrity chef,” Coradino said when asked what other restaurants the company was recruiting for the mall (should the referendum/s pass). , Coradino said PREIT also has signed letters of intent with two other restaurants, but did not name them.
  • Coradino said the addition of four restaurants would involve between 32,000-40,000 total square feet of new construction, plus 65,000 square feet for the new theater. Although the theater and restaurants will be built within the footprint of the existing mall, he said it would still entail about $35-40 million of new construction. “Essentially you will demolish that space within the mall, leave the walls up, and build within it,” he said. “It’s significant.” He claimed those improvements would yield roughly $500,000-650,000 in additional tax revenue.

Coradino said there were more than 750 residents on Wednesday’s call.


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