Moorestown Mall attains approval to add multifamily housing

Excavators will soon dig in at Moorestown Mall in New Jersey as owner PREIT won unappealable approval for it to add multifamily housing there. The company also received a mortgage loan extension to redevelop its Woodland Mall in Michigan.

PREIT, which years ago began reformatting its malls with outward-facing restaurants like Seasons 54 and Yard House, now begins its strategic move to add residential components to its properties in highly densified markets like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Moorestown is a suburb across the Delaware River from Philly.

At Woodland Mall, PREIT has added tenants that include Von Maur, Sephora, a new prototype Williams-Sonoma, REI, and Michigan's second Cheesecake Factory. The Philadelphia-based mall REIT has focused on five core areas for future growth: traditional and value retail, dining, entertainment, and fitness. Now residential real estate gets added to the list.

"Among other capital-raising initiatives, the PREIT team is keenly focused on executing our multi-family land sales to reduce leverage and our interest burden," Coradino said. "As the addition of apartments and hotels extends across our portfolio of properties, our growing customer base will deliver new benefits and value to our existing tenants and communities."

A Cooper University Health Care facility will be filling a 165,000-sq.-ft. space vacated by Sears at Moorestown Mall, which will also be adding a hotel. Coradino said that a valuation improvement on the property and cap rate compression that occurred over the past year allowed PREIT to extend maturity on the property to finance the redevelopment.