Entertainment
What Moorestown’s incoming entertainment center has meant for the mall’s finances
Watch: Moorestown Mall mega-site staffers cheer final vaccine recipients
Health care workers cheer as final COVID-19 vaccine recipients leave the Moorestown Mall mega-site
Video provided, Cherry Hill Courier-Post
MOORESTOWN — An entertainment center planned for Moorestown Mall has already delivered a financial boost to the shopping center’s owner.
A Florida firm has paid $4.6 million for a former anchor store expected to hold its 200,000-square-foot complex at the Route 38 mall, property records show. Parkys FEC Holdings LLC of Fort Lauderdale also has an option to buy another 25,000 square feet of space inside the mall.
Records don’t indicate a potential price tag if Parky’s exercises the option.
Records for the sale and the option agreement were signed on the buyer’s behalf by Aaron Parkinson, an entrepreneur whose ventures include Xtreme Action Park, a 10-year-old attraction in Fort Lauderdale. The Florida park has a restaurant and features go-kart racing, bowling, mini-golf and laser tag, among other amusements.
Parkinson could not be reached for comment.
The Moorestown center is expected to have similar attractions, along with an outdoor beer garden and stage.
It could open by year-end, according to Moorestown Deputy Mayor Quinton Law.
The property was the longtime site of a Lord & Taylor department store that closed in 2019. It held a vaccination mega-site during the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, a Turn 7 discount store.
The 84-acre mall is owned by PREIT, a financially ailing shopping center operator based in Philadelphia.
PREIT, which also owns Cherry Hill Mall and 15 other shopping centers, is selling off parts of its properties to diversify its lineups and pay down debts.
It sold a former Sears store for $10 million to Cooper University Health Care in 2021. The health system now has a $150-million out-patient campus in the 165,000-square-foot space.
Among other transactions, a Pennsylvania developer paid $8 million for part of the mall’s parking lot that’s intended to hold a seven-building apartment complex, The Pearl.
The project, approved by members of the planning board in February 2022, is expected to begin residential construction this year, a mall representative said. The site between Boscov’s and Nixon Drive currently holds a multi-story parking garage for the intended homes.
The developer, Bel Canto Asset Growth Fund of Plymouth Meeting, could not be reached for comment.
Mall operators, who last year added a liquor store at the site of a former Sears Auto Center, also hope to bring a hotel to the parking lot.
PREIT cut its debts by $850 million during a bankruptcy action last year. The firm, which had lost more than $900 million over the last several years, also became a privately held company with new management.
The Parky’s purchase provided a smaller windfall for New Jersey’s state government. It collected a realty transfer fee on the transaction of approximately $100,000.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.
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