A Jackson-based developer is heading to the Voorhees Zoning Board of Adjustment in December with plans for a three-story, 117-unit independent senior apartment building on vacant land in front of the SpringHill Suites on Voorhees Drive (via Jersey Digs).
The applicant, FP Voorhees LLC, is tied to Fernmoor Living of Jackson, according to the application. The only listed owner with a 10% or larger stake is Jeffrey Fernbach of Jackson, who's listed as president of Fernmoor Homes in a builders association directory (HBA of Delaware). Fernmoor builds single-family homes, townhomes, active-adult communities and rentals in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and markets its communities under the Mi-Place name (Fernmoor Living).
The building would total about 126,000 square feet. The developer's traffic study estimates 188 weekday trips in and out. The board will be asked for preliminary and final major site plan approval. A specific hearing date hasn't been posted on the township's zoning board page yet.
This parcel has a history. The SpringHill Suites, a 188-room Marriott hotel, was approved in 2009 as phase one of a larger plan. Phase two was supposed to bring a restaurant, a bank and retail, but that never happened. In 2024, the hotel's owner, Voorhees Hotel Associates of Horsham, Pa., told the zoning board it had marketed the land to restaurants and retailers without success, pointing to the site's lack of visibility from Haddonfield-Berlin Road (70and73.com).
The board granted a use variance and bulk variances on July 11, 2024, and adopted the resolution that August, since residential use wasn't permitted on the lot. That earlier plan was a 116-unit active-senior condominium building with 166 parking spaces on a roughly six-acre parcel at Voorhees Drive and Executive Drive, behind Eagle Plaza. Residents would have had access to the hotel's indoor pool.
The new version is slightly different: 117 units instead of 116, and independent-living rental apartments instead of condos. Voorhees Hotel Associates still owns the land.
The bigger issue may be affordability. According to Jersey Digs, the zoning board's engineer, Bennett A. Matlack of Artheon, noted that the application doesn't include any affordable housing commitment and estimated that about 24 units would need to be set aside as affordable. Expect that to come up at the hearing.
It lands in a township that's been busy on housing. Voorhees adopted its fourth-round affordable housing plan in June 2025, covering a 181-unit obligation through 2035 (Voorhees Planning Board minutes). Sites in that plan include 120 affordable units at 600 Centennial Blvd. and 60 units on the AMC theater's overflow parking lot off Laurel Oak Road.
That 60-unit, 100% affordable project, two buildings on 2.36 acres, won Planning Board approval in June, roughly 500 feet from the senior site. And in October, the Planning Board signed off on converting the vacant Four Echelon Plaza office building at 201 Laurel Road into 178 market-rate apartments.
Why it matters for Contractors
Three approved or pending multifamily projects within a short drive of each other add up to a real pipeline in this corner of Camden County. A 126,000-square-foot, three-story building is a big job, and if it clears the zoning board, it'll need site work, framing, MEP, roofing, finishes and more.
For smaller shops, the practical move is to get on the radar early. Watch the Voorhees Zoning Board agenda for the December hearing date (the board's page is at voorheesnj.com, and Planning and Zoning can be reached at 856-429-0647). Meetings are held in the Court Room at 2400 Voorhees Town Center.
Keep an eye on how the affordable set-aside gets resolved, too. If units are required, that can change the project's financing and timeline, and sometimes its scope. Subs who track these projects from the hearing stage are usually better positioned when general contractors start lining up bids.