Planning Board OKs 400,000-SF Shopping Center

FREEHOLD TWP., NJ-The planning board here has given its final approval to Developers Diversified Realty to build its Freehold Marketplace, a 400,000-sf power center in this western Monmouth County community. Officials of the Beachwood, OH-based REIT say that they expect to start construction on the project this summer, and hope to have it opened by the end of 2005.

Anchor tenants will include a Wal-Mart, which will occupy 150,000 sf, and a 153,000-sf Sam’s Club. Cost figures for Freehold Marketplace, which will sit on an 87-acre site along the Route 33 bypass here, have not been released.

The final version of the project is a somewhat scaled back version of Developers Diversified’s original 500,000-sf proposal. The reduced size still drew public criticism at last week’s planning board meeting, mostly related to traffic. For one thing, the Freehold Marketplace site is located adjacent to Freehold Raceway Mall, a 1.7-million-sf super-regional center owned by an affiliate of the Rochester, NY-based Wilmorite that is currently undergoing a 350,000-sf expansion.