A Burlington County town’s long-vacant landmark could become apartments if rooftop antennas don’t derail plans
A downtown landmark in Riverside locals call the Watch Case building has been mostly or entirely vacant since the mid-1950s. But a development proposal has raised hopes for renewal.
Dreamers and developers have come and gone for 50 years, but a faded landmark locals call “the Watch Case” building continues to command the heart of Riverside.
With its seven-story clock tower and a prominent spot on Pavilion Avenue across from the township’s busy railroad station, the complex in its heyday was the world’s largest manufacturer of metal cases for pocket watches.
“It’s a cherished building where thousands of local residents worked,” said owner Sheharyar Shaikh, 44, who lives in Cherry Hill.
The township council selected Shaikh in 2021 to redevelop the long vacant but structurally sound factory and the office tower — which has a birdcage elevator in the lobby — for residential use.
“These will be trendy apartments with high ceilings and industrial finishes,” Shaikh said. “We’re going to try to have a rooftop lounge with Philadelphia skyline views.”
But there are complications.
A company affiliated with Diamond Communications of Springfield Township, Union County, has a long-term rooftop lease to house antennas used by three cellular phone service providers. The rooftop installations, as well as related wiring and other equipment elsewhere in the Watch Case building, could have an impact on renovations.
The lease was entered into by an engineering firm that owned the building until 2016. That’s when it was bought by Brooklyn entrepreneur Raphael S. Weiss, who six years later pleaded guilty to fraud. To avoid jail time, he agreed to satisfy liens, pay back taxes, and relinquish control of the property so Shaikh could purchase it.
Shaikh declined to say how much his Watch Tower OZ Fund SPV LLC paid for the complex, describing the purchase as “a very complicated litigious process.” The project is moving forward and the presence of the communications equipment “has not messed up the process” of applying for tax credit financing for the renovations, he said.
“I look forward to working with all the stakeholders to come up with a fair and amicable solution to the antennas on top of the building,” Shaikh said.
In a statement, Jason Halper, a lawyer for Diamond Communications, said the firm “has a long-tenured commitment of providing infrastructure support to wireless service providers in order for them to service the community and provide access to first responders, and it remains supportive of the redevelopment of the historic Watch Case Co. Building.”
In a related matter, Diamond sent township officials an eight-page letter on July 1, urging delay of a scheduled vote on a rival internet communications infrastructure provider’s application to erect a tower on an alternative site in Riverside. Diamond characterized the application as deficient. Michael Malloy, a principal of Rise Up Towers LLC, said a hearing on the application is set for Sept. 9.
Rise, fall, and rise again?
One of the river towns that hug the Delaware in western Burlington County, Riverside is proud of its working-class heritage.
The Delaware and the railroads — NJ Transit’s River Line stops at the Watch Case building’s front door — powered the township’s economy, where the W.F. Taubel Knitting Mill and the Watch Case factory were major employers. The Taubel complex on Fairview Street was torn down in 2006.
The company that built what was originally called the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. building was owned by community benefactor Theophilus Zurbrugg. Business was booming when the building was finished in about 1908.
The firm made and engraved high-quality cases for pocket watches, with more than 1,000 employees in Riverside. Zurbrugg died in 1912, and pocket watches gradually gave way to wristwatches. The business folded in the mid-1950s, and an offshoot company, Riverside Metals, ceased operations in the early 1970s.
By 1977, the 140,000-square-foot, three-building complex was being trashed and vandalized.
But the Watch Case was listed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year. And in the following decades the Lippincott Jacobs engineering firm, as well as the Riverside Historical Society, occupied office space on the first floor of the tower.
By 2017, however, the building was vacant again and has remained so ever since. The clock on the tower hasn’t worked for at least a decade.
“It’s a rebuilding project that never gets built,” said Jim Donovan, who recently retired from the towing firm his father, Joe, founded opposite the factory portion of the Watch Case.
Deep affection for a remnant
Even with empty and overgrown lots nearby, the Watch Case has long been seen as the centerpiece of a “Golden Triangle” that could propel downtown redevelopment. In a news release following Shaikh’s selection as developer, the township described the Watch Case as “the most difficult piece, yet the most important piece” of the Triangle redevelopment area.
“There’s no question the Watch Case tower is iconic,” said Paul Schopp, assistant director of the South Jersey Culture & History Center at Stockton University. “It’s impressive. It’s very nicely designed.”
Said Shaikh: “It’s a rarity in South Jersey to have such a beautiful thing as this building in our backyard. It needs to be saved.”
Township attorney Albert K. Marmero said that in Riverside, “the hope has always been that once the Watch Case is developed, it will spur additional development downtown.”
The township’s position “is that the situation with the antennas on the roof is a private matter between two parties in which we’re not playing favorites,” he said. “But this is a Redevelopment Zone project in which the township has some stake.”