Ask anyone shopping for a house in Voorhees Township this year and you will hear about the mall. The 400-acre Echelon Mall site, closed since a 2024 fire, is supposed to become a $250 million mixed-use town center with more than 300 new homes, new restaurants, and a rebuilt commercial core. It sounds like the kind of announcement that should be moving prices already.
Here is the part that gets skipped in most conversations about it: nothing has been built. No shovel has gone into the ground. And the price appreciation that everyone assumes is tied to this project was already well underway before the deal that made it possible was even signed. If you are comparing Voorhees to other South Jersey towns and trying to decide how much of that redevelopment story to price into an offer, the honest answer is less than you think, and for reasons that matter to how you shop the market.
The Agreement Is Signed. The Money Isn't.
On October 27, 2025, the Voorhees Township Committee unanimously approved a redevelopment agreement with Hoboken Brownstone Company, a North Jersey development firm led by president George Vallone. The plan calls for roughly 200 market-rate townhomes plus just over 100 units of designated affordable housing, a multi-level parking garage, and new commercial and entertainment space built around the existing Boscov's, which stays open and stays outside the sale.
That agreement is real. What is not final is the money behind it. Hoboken Brownstone applied for a $90 million tax credit through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority's Aspire Program, and Vallone has been direct about what happens if the state says no.
"If not, we walk."
He told The Philadelphia Inquirer in February 2026 that he expected a decision within a few months. As of late August 2026, no public announcement from the state on that application had surfaced. Nearly seven months have passed since that statement, with no confirmed timeline for when the credit will be decided, let alone approved. Vallone has also said that if the sale does go through, construction could not begin before early 2027.
That is the gap between the headline and the ground truth. The project you have heard about is a signed agreement waiting on a single funding decision that has already run past its own expected schedule.
Two Pieces of the Site Nobody Has Signed Off On Yet
Even setting the tax credit aside, parts of the property sit outside the deal entirely.
- Boscov's remains the site's only anchor and is explicitly excluded from the sale.
- The Boulevard Shoppes retail strip, which lost its Iron Hill Brewery when the chain filed for bankruptcy and closed all its locations in the fall of 2025, is also outside the transaction. Township administrators have said they have not heard from the mall's current owner, Namdar Realty Group, about what happens to that space next.
None of this means the redevelopment will fail. It means the version of Voorhees Town Center that gets built, and when, depends on decisions that have not been made yet by parties other than the developer or the township. A buyer weighing "future walkable town center" as part of a home's value is weighing something with real conditions still attached to it.
What the Price Data Actually Shows
Here is where the numbers get useful, because they cover a window that spans before and after the redevelopment agreement was signed, and they all point the same direction.
| Source and geography | Time window | Median or average price | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voorhees Township (Redfin) | September 2024 | $506,000 | up 17.7% |
| Voorhees, NJ (Movoto) | February 2026 | $449,900 | 60 homes sold, up from 58 |
| ZIP 08043 (Redfin) | three months ending June 2026 | $560,000 | up 11.4% |
| ZIP 08043 (Zillow home value index) | mid-2026 | $547,199 | up 9.4% |
Notice that the first data point predates the redevelopment agreement by more than a year, and the appreciation was already steep. Notice also that the most recent window, running through June 2026, still shows double-digit growth, eight months after the agreement was signed and with the developer's own earliest construction estimate, early 2027, still not on the calendar. Prices did not accelerate once the mall deal was announced. They were already climbing, and they kept climbing at a similar pace whether or not there was a town center project in the news.
One more figure worth sitting with: pace has slowed even as price has not. The same February 2026 data that showed the $449,900 median also showed average days on market at 38, compared to 21 the year before. Homes are still selling, just not as fast. That is not the signature of a market getting swept up in speculation about a future development. It is the signature of a market that was already tight and is now absorbing more inventory at a more normal pace.
The Number Inside the Number
There is a second layer worth unpacking before you take any of these medians at face value. Over that same three-month window ending June 2026, the ZIP code's median sale price rose 11.4 percent year over year, but the median price per square foot rose only 1.2 percent.
Those two numbers should move together if every home in the market simply got more valuable. They did not. The gap suggests that what changed most was the mix of homes selling, not the value of a given square foot of Voorhees real estate. When more larger or higher-end properties close in a given quarter, the median sale price climbs even if a typical three-bedroom colonial gained very little. That distinction matters if you are trying to figure out whether your specific target property, at your specific size and price point, has actually appreciated 11 percent or whether the headline number is telling you more about what happened to sell that quarter than what happened to value.
Where the Real Demand Is Coming From
If the town center is not driving this appreciation, something is. The pattern in Voorhees points to structural demand that has nothing to do with a project still waiting on a state agency.
Voorhees is largely built out, so resale inventory does not face the same competition from new construction that rapidly developing parts of Burlington and Gloucester County see. Access to Philadelphia, including PATCO rail service, keeps the township attractive to commuters who want suburban space without giving up a reasonable ride into the city. The township's schools, including Eastern Regional High School for older students, are a consistent draw for families relocating specifically to the area. And established lifestyle communities like Sturbridge Lakes give parts of Voorhees an amenity profile that many comparable South Jersey towns simply do not offer.
Every one of those factors predates the mall's fire, predates the redevelopment agreement, and will still be there whether the state approves Hoboken Brownstone's tax credit next month or next year.
What This Means If You're Comparing Voorhees to Other Towns
If you are weighing Voorhees against Cherry Hill, Marlton, or Mount Laurel and the town center project is part of your reasoning, separate it into two questions. First, is the home you are looking at benefiting from things that are already true today: the commute, the school district, the built-out scarcity, the existing amenities? Second, are you paying extra for a promise that still needs a state agency's signature and, at best, a 2027 groundbreaking?
The first set of factors is already reflected in the prices you are seeing. The second is not something any current sale data captures, because nothing has been built yet for it to reflect. Treat the redevelopment as a long-term neighborhood story worth watching, not a number you should be adding to today's offer.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Directly
Is the Voorhees Town Center redevelopment definitely happening? The redevelopment agreement is signed and approved by the township, but the developer has said the project will not move forward without a $90 million state tax credit that had not been publicly resolved as of late August 2026.
When would construction start if everything is approved? The developer has said construction could not begin before early 2027, even in the best case.
Should I expect home values near the site to jump once the credit is approved? Approval would remove one major hurdle, but construction, phasing, and eventual occupancy would still take years. Nothing in the current data suggests values are waiting on that outcome to keep moving.
If you are trying to figure out what a specific Voorhees property is actually worth right now, separate from any story about what might get built next door, that is exactly the kind of question worth working through with someone who tracks this market closely. Quandell Iglesia works with buyers and sellers across Voorhees Township and the surrounding South Jersey and Philadelphia-area communities, and can walk you through what the current numbers mean for your specific situation. Let's Connect.
