A prime undeveloped lot on the Black Horse Pike in Washington Township is proposed for an all new Kia dealership, America’s Tire building and a third unspecified retail/restaurant building.
The Black Horse Pike property is directly across from the existing Lowes and Target stores, with the traffic signal at Watson Drive positioned along the parcel’s road frontage.
This project is scheduled to be reviewed by the Washington Township Planning Board on November 7th, where the developer is looking for full approval of the project from the Township. Additional government entity approvals are likely to be required.
This information comes from a Public Legal Notice printed in Friday’s South Jersey Times, informing the public of the Scheduled Meeting. It is possible that the meeting can be postponed or cancelled prior to the scheduled date. That is not under the control of 42Freway.
The project is being presented by the property owner/developer who is looking for approval of the three buildings.
As depicted in the 42Freeway unofficial rendering here, the three building project is expected to share a main access point off of the Black Horse Pike, inline with the traffic light intersection at Watson Drive.
A center interior drive will continue into the property from the traffic signal, with the Kia dealership developed to the right utilizing the largest portion of the property for the project.
America’s Tire would be developed to the left, also along the road frontage. In the back left corner an unspecified retail building is depicted with a drive-thru.
This property has been marketed for many years with a variety of plans including back in 2016 when a LIDL Grocery store was planned but then never developed.
New Kia Auto Dealership
Clearly the key aspect of this project is an all new KIA Auto Dealership, which based on documents published in May it is listed as 35,430 square feet. These plans may have been adjusted since then.
While the dealership company is not named, obviously Washington Township already has Turnersville Kia.
Ownership at Turnersville Kia has been looking to expand their dealership building, and in recent years they have been to the Planning Board twice to gain approval for expansions of their existing building.
It seems they have changed their plans and decided it would be best to develop an all-new dealership which would only be 1.25 miles from their existing location (on the same Black Horse Pike)
Not only will the new proposed project enable them to build a significantly larger dealership building (at least twice the size of existing), but at the proposed development location the surrounding property is much larger enabling them to develop a much bigger parking lot of 418 parking spaces. Which of course means they will be able to keep a larger inventory of cars on-hand.
Across the outer edges of the property, several water retention basins are planned.
The property owner/developer also owns much of the wooded lands behind the the proposed project but then even coming down to the Route 42 frontage, more north of this project. Documents show the road frontage zoned for commercial and the wooded areas in the rear are residential. At this time there are no plans for those additional lots
Links and Location
Proposed Kia Dealership, America’s Tire, Retail
Black Horse Pike at Watson Drive
Washington Twp NJ
Washington Township Planning Meeting Details
November 7th at 6:30 pm (in-person)
Washington Township Municipal Building
523 Egg Harbor Road
Sewell, New Jersey