Two large warehouses of 348,750 sq ft each are being proposed for Harrison Township Gloucester County NJ, on a property at the corner of Tomlin Station Rd and Woodland Ave.
There are existing businesses at the larger property entrance on Tomlin Station Rd and they are unaffected by this development.
But the remainder of the property is currently undeveloped and appears to have been most recently used for farming… but initially there were plans to fill out the remaining 40 acres with smaller business.
The newly proposed two warehouse development is 1/4 mile south of Route 322 and less than a mile from NJ Turnpike Exit 2 (Swedesboro)
There are no details on who the tenants would be. There is a reasonable chance there aren’t any tenants signed… many warehouses are getting built speculatively with the expectation once approved or built, tenants can be signed.
The proposal will be reviewed by Harrison Township’s Joint Land Use Board on September 15th. Meeting details below.
In the article we review details that we know, as well as information on what was originally the goal of the property… from just 2 years ago.
Keep scrolling and reading!
Harrison: Tomlin Station Rd Proposed Warehouses
The project is being proposed by Watson Land Company who are based in California.
They have two other South Jersey warehouses in their portfolio, both of which are leased. Scroll down for more details on those.
For the Harrison Township project, they are looking for full approval of the project in September, to build the two warehouse buildings.
It appears the buildings will be carbon-copies of each other.
Each will have 348, 750 sq ft of total developed space, with 13,000 sq ft allocated for office space.
They parking lot capacity is described in combined numbers… 483 car parking spaces, plus parking for 176 trailers.
The development includes stormwater management facilities, interior driveways, site lighting, identification and directional signage, landscaping and related site improvements
The legal notice states that this type of project is allowed within the Tomlin Station Redevelopment Plan which was approved by Harrison Township.
Looking at documents available online, it seems Harrison Township has been trying to define development of the property for at least a dozen years.
From Smaller Business to Large Warehouses
The Tomlin Station Commerce Center has some existing buildings located at the Tomlin Station Rd entrance. They are unaffected by these plans.
For the remainder of the property, it’s clear the original intention was for it to be filled out with similar smaller office and light-industrial business, as an extension of the Tomlin Station Commerce Center.
Just two years ago the proposed warehouse property was marketed for development of smaller business parcels of 3-4 acres each.
In fact even with no buildings, a large investment was spent to develop two roads within the property including brick curbing, utilities and separated into multiple tax lots.
So while there are no developed buildings there is water, sewer and even fire hydrants along the road!
Tax maps show that along those roadways the property was previously split into multiple tax lots of 3-4 acres each, with the intent of being developed as individual businesses or office buildings.
Even today there is still marketing information online regarding the sale of individual 3-4 acre lotes.
Commercial real estate site Loopnet offers the following listing page.
And just 2 years ago a local real estate professional put online a Youtube video presentation taken from the property
It’s a smart business model to take an undeveloped piece of farm land, upgrade it with the core roads and utilities… so it becomes more valuable to businesses looking to relocate! Having the core approvals and utility work completed is huge!
But then the big warehouses showed up to the party.
NJ – The Warehouse State
It’s clear that in the commercial development industry South Jersey has been identified as an area of growth.
Just like North Jersey, we have the same access to the major cities and airports of the Northeast.
But unlike North Jersey what we do still have is undeveloped land along the major roadways.
And it’s clear development companies are spending a LOT of time looking at Google Satellite maps to identify possible opportunities.
And whole the Tomlin Station property originally thought they would be home to several smaller businesses and spent significant money on the initial infrastructure, the Watson Land team offered up a different plan.
One question about the Harrison Twp property is… will they be using any of the already placed utilities? Maybe that existing roadway will split between the two buildings and utilized the already completed work.
We’ll see at the Planning Meeting or if I can get the plans in advance.
I’ll also have a lot more South Jersey warehouse coverage to come!
Developer: Watson Land Company
The project is being proposed by Watson Land Company, a South California based development company.
Their website says their portfolio is 118 properties and over 24 million square feet.
Watson Land has two other warehouse properties in South Jersey, after purchasing the recently developed “The Cubes” warehouse projects in East Greenwich.
A press release states those two buildings were inertially built “speculative” without tenants by the original developer, but after they both became fully leased… Watson acquired.
The 191 Harmony Road property is leased by Elogistic (global e-commerce fulfillment) and the 100 Huff Lane building is leased by an international automotive company.
We’ll have more on these warehouses and all of the South Jersey warehouses in upcoming coverage to catch-up on all of the developments.
Links and Locations
For additional 42Freeway coverage of Harrison/Mullica business news, click here.
Watson Land Company : Proposed Harrison Twp Warehouses
Tomlin Station Rd and Woodland Ave
Harrison Twp NJ
JLUB Meeting Details
Joint Land Use Board of the Township of Harrison
Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 7:00 p.m.
Municipal Building
114 Bridgeton Pike, Mullica Hill, New Jersey