FEATURE ARTICLE, OCTOBER 2004

TURNING TRASH INTO REAL ESTATE TREASURE
One New Jersey development will create viable retail, office and residential space while cleaning up the environment.
Luci Cason

When one thinks of environmental cleanup, shopping center construction isn’t normally the first thing to spring to mind. But, with the development of Stafford Park in southeastern New Jersey, those two concepts will go hand in hand.

The project, to be developed by Marlton, New Jersey-based The Walters Group, will be located on 320 acres on the southeastern coast of New Jersey. The property is owned by the Township of Stafford, New Jersey, and 60 of those acres are an inactive landfill.

Stafford Park

Stafford Park will include more than 240 townhomes, 250 single-family homes (ranging in price from about $400,000 to $500,000), 25,000 square feet of office space, 66,000 square feet of recreational space that will be developed into twin ice skating rinks, and 628,000 square feet of retail space, including three major anchor stores, 10 to 11 smaller stores and a restaurant.

Most importantly, though, is the first step in Stafford Park’s development process — the capping of an adjacent municipal landfill that hasn’t been used in more than 20 years.

Not only will the capping of the landfill be good for the local environment, it will also save the township quite a bit of money. At any time, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection could have ordered the township to cover the landfill, which would have cost the city up to $20 million, but, under the development agreement, The Walters Group will cap the landfill at no cost to the municipality.

“If you went out there right now, you’d think you were standing in a meadow. The landfill is basically debris buried under grass,” says Tim Regan, The Walters Group co-founder. Currently, rain filters through the uncapped landfill debris, into the ground and then into the groundwater. The capping process, which will include covering the area with plastic and dirt and then installing a drainage system, will mean that rain will be diverted to retention ponds. From there, it can then enter the groundwater in a clean fashion.

“In the world of landfills, this is a friendly landfill,” says Regan. “It will be about 400 feet from the nearest part of the development, so we don’t anticipate any impact on our project from the capped landfill.”

Over the years, the Stafford Park property has been zoned for business, office and industrial use, but it didn’t attract much interest from developers. The only buildings on the land were a small county office and a recycling center. Eventually, the growing Stafford Township put out a request for proposals from developers interested in developing the site for other uses, giving special consideration to developers willing to incorporate the capping of the adjacent landfill into their plans. The Walters Group, which develops, owns and manages single-family homes, apartments and retail space in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, was chosen to develop the site.

“We took the position that the way to cap the landfill was to develop the adjacent property. Part of the money we make on developing the adjacent real estate will go to capping the landfill,” says Regan. “There are a lot of uncapped landfills in New Jersey that will have to be capped sooner or later. The most logical way to cap them is to have the state or town pay for the capping, but that ends up being at the taxpayers’ expense,” he notes. “We said, ‘Let us develop the remaining acres of the site and we’ll cap the landfill.’”

So far, the arrangement seems to be a win-win situation for both The Walters Group and Stafford Township. The city will be revitalized and The Walters Group has found developable land — a challenge in the increasingly densely populated and developed metropolitan areas of New Jersey.

Regan says he expects Stafford Park, which will sit at the southwest intersection of the Garden State Parkway and Route 72, to be a regional draw, attracting much of the area’s population, which has grown due to an influx of residents from the north.

A little over an hour south of Manhattan, Stafford Township boasts a great location. Regan says that “people are moving down from the higher cost areas of New Jersey and New York into the less crowded and more affordable areas of Southern New Jersey.”

Currently in the planning and developing process, Stafford Park will break ground in January 2006 with the capping of the landfill. The residential and retail portions of the project will follow.

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