Township Awards Liquor Licenses to PREIT

Township council formally awarded four liquor licenses to PREIT Monday, but representatives from the Moorestown Mall owner who attended the council meeting were still mum on which restaurants those licenses will be used for.

“We’re in deep negotiations with tenants, and we’re as anxious as anybody,” said Bruce Goldman, executive vice president. “We want to be able to announce (what the restaurants are) as much as people want to hear.”

Because state law restricts an entity (or an individual) to only holding two liquor licenses at a time, PREIT set up two subsidiary companies—Moorestown Beverage I, LLC and Moorestown Beverage II, LLC—so it could be awarded the licenses.

PREIT is in the process of undergoing the proper verifications—e.g. background checks, fingerprinting—to be legally granted the licenses and won’t make any announcements until after that’s completed, said Goldman, who declined to provide a timeline for how long that might take. 

He said the plan now is for PREIT to have at least some of the restaurants open by spring 2013, to tie it in with the opening of the .

PREIT had previously indicated it hoped to have some of the restaurants open in time for the 2012 holiday season.

—other than to say they will be full-service, fine dining—a recent letter from CEO Joe Coradino stated one of the restaurants is expected to be an Italian establishment run by “a noted celebrity chef from the Philadelphia area”—.

Asked whether the company would announce all four restaurants at once or one at a time, Goldman said it all depends on when the leases are executed. 

If everything goes as planned, . 

East Gate Square, , also submitted a proposal for one license at $1,030,000. The township is awaiting a decision from Superior Court Judge Ronald Bookbinder to determine what to do with the proposal.