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Voorhees Town Center

Voorhees Town Center
Voorheestownsign.JPG
Voorhees Town Center signage
Location Voorhees Township, New Jersey, USA
Opening date 1970
Owner Mason Asset Management and Namdar Realty Group
No. of stores and services 50+
No. of anchor tenants 2 (1 open, 1 vacant)
Total retail floor area 664,380 square feet (61,723 m2)
No. of floors 2
Parking Parking lot
Public transit access Bus transport NJ Transit bus: 403, 451, 459
Website www.voorheestowncenter.com

Voorhees Town Center (formerly Echelon Mall) is a regional shopping mall and is residential area located in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, United States. It was built in 1970 and named after Echelon Airfield which was located where the mall stands today.Coordinates: 39°51′00″N 75°00′08″W / 39.8500°N 75.0023°W / 39.8500; -75.0023 The Echelon Mall was renamed Voorhees Town Center in 2007.

The site on which the Echelon Mall was built began as an airfield; nearly 200 acres (0.81 km2) of farmland bought by flying enthusiasts Rogers and Jeannette Smith in 1939. The Echelon Airfield was incorporated in 1944 and went on to house 20 planes. The development included three grass runways, a gift shop, a small café and hangar capable of housing six planes. The airfield was mostly used for recreational flying, flying lessons, and a take-off point for crop dusters and chartered flights.

Rogers Smith died in a flying accident in 1950, and his wife leased the airfield to Hugh and Kay Hamill, who ran the airfield until Mrs. Smith sold the property in 1962. The new owners renamed the field Delaware Valley Airpark, and ran it for three more years. In 1969, groundbreaking occurred to construct the Echelon Mall. Developed by The Rouse Company, the mall opened in 1970.

Until redevelopment began in January 2007, the Echelon Mall had a gross leasable area of 1,127,308 square feet (104,730 m²). This made it the second largest mall in southern New Jersey after the Cherry Hill Mall. Echelon was developed in 1970 as the center of a residential and commercial center in Voorhees. In October 1992, the Echelon Mall opened a family entertainment center called Exhilarama, which was owned and operated by Edison Brothers Stores. Exhilarama was a popular indoor amusement center throughout the mid-1990s until it closed in 1996. Housed in the same building as Exhilarama, was a General Cinema movie theater, which closed a few years later. The building was demolished and the land was used to provide parking for the mall.


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