Pandemic concerns drive changes at upscale Cherry Hill apartment complex
CHERRY HILL – A developer has revised its four-year-old plan for an upscale apartment complex here, saying the pandemic has changed the way tenants want to live.
First Montgomery Group, citing an ongoing preference for open spaces, sought township approval recently to expand a planned clubhouse its 370-unit project, Enclave at Woodcrest Station.
The developer also will add more outdoor amenities — like gas grills, fireplaces, outdoor seating and games — at the Woodcrest Road complex.
And because more people are taking up a relatively new sport, a dog park will shrink to make way for two pickleball courts.
The Woodcrest complex is rising as part of a redevelopment project at a former industrial site near the PATCO Hi-Speedline's Woodcrest station. The first residents are expected to arrive this summer, according to FMG's website.
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When the project won initial approval in 2018, “the trend in the multifamily industry was for smaller clubhouses,” said an FMG executive.
“However, beginning with the pandemic, we have experienced a great demand for larger indoor spaces as well as more outdoor living areas,” John Cranmer, the firm’s director of development, noted in an application before Cherry Hill’s planning board.
FMG now plans to build a two-story clubhouse of almost 9,500 square feet. That will provide more room for fitness equipment, work spaces and games.
The original plan called for a one-story building of about 3,900 square feet.
“When we designed this clubhouse over six years ago, it was a very typical apartment-community clubhouse, kind of looking like a 55-plus community,” Rich Haydinger, an FMG principal, said at the Jan. 17 planning board meeting.
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He said FMG “truly received an education” about the luxury apartment market while building 202 Park Avenue, a complex that opened last year across from Cooper River Park.
“We’re trying to make (the Woodcrest project) feel like a modern resort,” Haydinger said.
The Haddon Township developer also wants to make “significant” additions to outdoor amenities at the six-building site.
Among those changes, a dog park would be reduced from 11,000 to about 4,100 square feet, making room for two lighted pickleball courts.
The application notes pickleball courts “were not explicitly contemplated” in a 2018 redevelopment plan for the 18-acre site.
The planning board unanimously approved the changes, but acknowledged the concern of a township resident, Martha Wright, that the pickleball courts could create a noise problem.
The courts are to close at 8 p.m. if that happens, board members noted.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Cherry Hill NJ apartment complex plan getting COVID changes
