With endorsements from residents, Planning Board approves Cherry Hill Subaru move and expansion.

Residents ordinarily show up at local planning or zoning meetings to offer a litany of reasons why a development should be blocked.

But Cherry Hill neighbors testifying at Monday night's meeting of the Planning Board turned it into a bit of a lovefest — with compliments and support for Cherry Hill Subaru's application to build a new dealership on the former site of Subaru corporate headquarters on Route 70.

Planning Board members also offered kudos to the dealership, and owner Ziad Nashed, and unanimously approved preliminary and major final site plans and bulk variances. It now operates less than a mile from the planned new site on the westbound side of Route 70, adjacent to the Locustwood neighborhood.

"They are not a detriment to our neighborhood and act as an example of what a local business should act like to be a good neighbor," Locustwood resident Frank Maloney told the board. 

Maloney's Chambers Street property is bordered on three sides by the Cherry Hill Dodge dealership, which for years has been in a bitter dispute with Locustwood residents.

Most recently, and after neighbor complaints, the Township pulled the previously approved demolition permits for two homes the dealer wanted to clear to add to its parking lot. Cherry Hill Dodge's owner has sued the Township.

Yet, as criticism has been deep for Cherry Hill Dodge, praise flowed on Monday for its neighbor, Cherry Hill Subaru.

"It's been a long time since we've had residents who have testified positively about a car dealership," board member Marlyn Kalitan said before casting her approval vote. 

Added Township Council member William Carter, who sits on the Planning Board: "I've got to compliment the owner. I've never heard anybody say that many good things about anybody...here in this town." Carter said the dealership was a good reuse of the vacant Subaru property.

One resident, Martha Wright, a community advocate who speaks at many meetings, said she was conflicted about the Subaru application because "it's very clear it's a stand-up organization, which we welcome in the town."

But Wright expressed concerns over building part of the parking lot in a flood plain, the stormwater runoff and the "heat desert" that will be created. "I don't feel from a visual or environmental concern that it makes sense," she said.

Wright and others at the meeting brought up the route for test drives of vehicles and customers. Subaru does not require car shoppers to be with a salesperson on test drives and Wright wondered how the potential buyers will be held to the approved route that does not take them into neighborhoods.

Others praised Subaru, to the point of seemingly surprising the company's lawyer at the meeting.

"Such a great neighbor, we're really going to miss him," Alexander Esposito of the Locustwood neighborhood testified about Subaru. With Maloney and others, Esposito has been active in opposing the expansion of Cherry Hill Dodge.

Subaru "is a business that's been a good neighbor in proximity to a residential community," Esposito said. "Every time that I've called him, he picks up the phone," he said of owner Nashed.

Applicant Star Real Estate of Cherry Hill II LLC was seeking approval for its plans to construct a building with a 64,035-square-foot footprint, including a 21,840-square-foot showroom, 36,350-square-foot service area and a 5,845-square-foot driveway at 2235 Route 70.

The land still is owned by Subaru of America, the U.S. unit of the carmaker, and the application shows that Star Real Estate would purchase the property.

This site once was the home of the Latin Casino dinner club, a 1,500-seat venue that featured superstars that included Frank Sinatra and the Jackson 5.

In the early 1980s, the Latin Casino building was razed and in 1986 Subaru of America moved into new $18 million headquarters. That building was torn down in 2019, the year after Subaru of America moved into larger and new headquarters in a $118-million building in Camden.