BOE President Vows to Seek Outlet Tax Abatement Answers

Gloucester Township Board of Education President William Collins promised this week to reach out to Mayor David Mayer about a possible agreement in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, agreement for the Gloucester Premium Outlets mall.

Collins said he had not heard about the proposal after several residents raised the issue during a public comment portion of a school board meeting Monday night.

"We don't need another high-end retail shop like the one that's going to be built on College Drive unless we get money from it to help run our schools," Richard Bobbe, an attorney and candidate for the school board in the fall election, said during public comment Monday. "The fact that we don't know about it and are not making a stand concerns me."

The Gloucester Premium Outlets is a 450,000-square-foot mall planned for construction on 55 acres near the College Drive interchange on busy Route 42. The mall won final site-plan approval earlier this month from the township planning board. 

Patricia Kline, a Republican candidate this fall for the township Council, also quizzed the board about the possible PILOT agreement. She asked each board member to state if they had heard about the discussion of a PILOT for Gloucester Premium Outlets. Each responded they had not.
 
Last month, the mayor said the township was considering offering the developers, Simon Management Associates and PREIT/Rubin Inc., a PILOT agreement. Typically such agreements include an abatement of some local taxes, such as school taxes, for a period of time. PILOTs are often awarded to promote economic development.

Mayer calls Gloucester Premium Outlets the "largest economic development project in the history of the township." He said it will bring 300 construction jobs and 700 retail jobs after the project is completed. It's scheduled to open in the fall of 2014.

But a groundswell of opposition has sprung up to the project and a possible tax abatement.