Politics & Government

Tax Abatement Considered for Gloucester Premium Outlets

Developers for the outlet project won final site plan approval on Tuesday.

Mayor David Mayer said this week Gloucester Township is considering offering the developers of Gloucester Premium Outlet a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, agreement.

PILOT agreements typically abate local school taxes for a period of time, often 25 years, while continuing to pay municipal taxes. Simon Management Associates, the developers of Gloucester Premium Outlets, won its final site plan approval on Tuesday from the township planning board. Plans call for a 450,000-square-foot outlet mall on 55 acres just off of Route 42 at College Road.

“One of the reasons they are looking at this area is it’s a redevelopment that could possibly afford a PILOT,” Mayer said this week. “Under the redevelopment law it comes with a PILOT.”

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Gloucester Premium Outlets is expected to bring name-brand, high-end merchandise to this oasis of land in southern Camden County. It’s located on a new interchange on the busy Route 42 highway and is expected to draw big crowds during and after its scheduled opening in the fall of 2014.

“I think what Simon is looking for is a workable, feasible project,” Mayer said. “It’s not unheard of that developers get approval for a project and then pull out.”

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Mayer calls Gloucester Premium Outlets the largest economic development project in the history of the township. He said a PILOT is still being seriously considered even though Simon Associates told the planning board Tuesday they are committed to opening Gloucester Premium Outlets in the fall of 2014.

Mayer cited an ill-fated development project at the Nike missile base in the southern part of the township before his tenure as an example of a project with site plan approval that can still run off the rails.

Another planned project at the Nike base in 2011 for the Hit Doctor company called for four baseball fields resembling the four former homes of the Philadelphia Phillies as part of a training facility for young ball players. The developer eventually pulled out of the project and the former Cold War military facility on 46 acres near Erial Williamstown Road still sits vacant.

Mayer did not put a timetable on when the township council will take up a possible PILOT agreement for Gloucester Premium Outlets.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Mayer cited Hit Doctor as a project that can run off the rails. That was incorrect.


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