A proposal for 10 warehouses, a hotel, a big-box retailer and 200 homes sparks opposition in Gloucester County

A massive mixed-use project that would include 10 warehouses, a 100-room hotel, and 200 units of housing has run into resistance in Harrison Township, Gloucester County.

Some residents of the township’s Richwood section — a substantially rural area along Route 322 just west of Route 55 — are alarmed by the prospect of the 385-acre, five-phase development.

The proposal by an affiliate of Active Acquisitions, a North Jersey real estate company with a focus on warehouses, also would include a big-box, “buyer’s club” retailer. It would take 20 years to complete the entire development.

Company officials did not respond to email and voicemail messages Friday. Residents say they plan to attend the regular township committee meeting on Monday.

“So it sounds like we’re going to be living in turmoil for 20 years here, with roads and warehouses being constructed,” said Stacy Staino, 49, a substitute teacher and mother of two. She’s lived in Richwood for a decade.

“Among the reasons we moved here is the openness and the farmland,” Staino said. “And now they want to put houses right behind my house, and warehouses beyond that all the way up to 322.”

Said her neighbor, Jason Daniel, 46, a research and development manager and the father of two sons: “We moved here eight years ago with the expectation that while there might be some development nearby, it would be tailored to the character of the area and benefit people who live here.

“Instead, this proposed development seems contrary to what people living here want,” he said. “The development is structured around warehouses, and if they take such a major chunk of our open space with these ... monoliths, it’s going to be hard to preserve Richwood’s character.”

During an interview Friday, Mayor Louis Manzo said the proposed development follows two earlier development efforts that went nowhere.

“Our vision originally had been for a mixed-use Richwood town center with retail, but the world has changed. This property has languished. What’s being built now are warehouses and we are well aware of the pushback against warehouses.”

The Richwood proposal is the second warehouse development effort the township has grappled with in recent years. In 2023, a ruling by N.J. Superior Court in Gloucester County reversed the joint land use board’s decision to deny a warehouse developer’s application to build on a suitably zoned property in the Mullica Hill section on the west side of town.

“I believe that [development] plan will go forward,” said Manzo.

Warehouse development is also permitted by the zoning that encompasses the 385-acre property. He also said the township’s redevelopment plan for Richwood — amended several years ago to enable a soccer facility to be built there — recently was amended again at the request of the longtime owner, MadisonMarquette.

The Washington, D.C.-based real estate firm “wanted to be able to go to market and sell it,” Manzo said. Officials at the company could not be reached Friday.

Said Manzo: “We have high standards for warehouses in Richwood as far as aesthetics and buffering and berming.

“Our vision now is to not get sued [for denying a permitted use] and end up having a developer build something there we have no control over.”

With a population of 13,641 spread across 19 square miles, Harrison Township has in recent decades evolved from a primarily agricultural to a more suburban community.

With ready access to Route 55, I-295, and the New Jersey Turnpike, Harrison and other communities like it in the Philadelphia region are under pressure from warehouse developers who’ve been priced or squeezed out of North and Central Jersey.

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Warehouses are still being proposed and built along major highways in the Northeast corridor, despite the fact that some began construction without signed leases and others stand empty. But communities such as Burlington Township, Burlington County, have persuaded developers to add restaurants and retail shops to their warehouse proposals.

Some residents, including those among the 380 members of the two-week-old Richwood Redevelopment Neighbors and Friends group on Facebook, said they’ve been surprised to learn not only about the project and its scope, but that it already seems well along in the municipal review and approval process, as the website 42Freeway first reported.

Jason Daniel was one of several Richwood residents who attended the Sept. 5 meeting of the township’s Joint Land Use Board at which a “General Development Plan” submitted by Active Acquisitions was approved.

“How did we get here?” he said Friday.

He and others said they hope to get answers at Monday’s township committee meeting at 7 p.m.