The long-vacant office tower known as Four Echelon Plaza, across from Boscov's and near the Camden County library in Voorhees, is headed for a second act as a 178-unit apartment complex. The eight-story building has sat largely empty for years, and the latest plan would put it back to work as market-rate housing.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the 4.8-acre property includes the office building itself along with a two-story parking garage. Under the new plan, parking would continue on the garage's ground level and half of its upper level, the paper reported.
From Senior Housing to Market-Rate Living
The 178-unit plan represents a significant shift from what was originally proposed. Back in February 2024, the developer pitched an entirely different vision: 112 senior apartments built in two phases, according to 70and73.com. That earlier proposal called for turning the building into an eight-floor, 96-unit senior rental complex, with a second phase adding 16 more senior units on the garage's top deck. The same report described the property at the time as a 4.8-acre site with a 185,000-square-foot office building.
Ownership of the site has also changed hands. RP 201 Laurel purchased the property for $4.3 million in August 2025 from 201 Laurel Road Voorhees LLC, a Teaneck-based developer, per the Inquirer's reporting.
A Harkness Design Earns Historic Status
Four Echelon Plaza was constructed in the early 1970s as part of the Rouse Company's Echelon Town Center complex, designed by architect John C. Harkness of The Architects Collaborative. The building was listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places, with the state's Historic Preservation Office noting the site's significance both as a major Harkness work and as an early example of precast concrete in modern architecture, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Historic Preservation Office. Per that same state office, the building may qualify for tax credits under the federal rehabilitation tax incentives program.
The building's decline tracked a familiar story for aging suburban office stock. It was 61 percent occupied in 2020, per the redevelopment plan cited by the Inquirer, but stood completely vacant by 2024. Township officials have since moved the project forward: Voorhees' planning board approved the preliminary and final major site plan on October 14, clearing the way for the 178-unit conversion to proceed.
Part of a Regional Office-to-Apartment Wave
Voorhees' project is one small piece of a much larger regional shift. At the start of 2026, the Philadelphia metro area had 2,697 apartments in the process of being converted from office space, a 119 percent jump from the year before, according to the Inquirer's separate reporting on the trend. That surge pushed the region to seventh place nationally in office-to-apartment adaptations underway or planned, up from 18th the previous year, with the national conversion pipeline reaching 90,300 apartments, roughly four times the 2022 total.
New Jersey alone had 141 identified office-conversion projects completed, under construction, or proposed as of August 2025, representing about 22.1 million square feet of former office space being pulled from the market, according to Real Estate NJ. Nearly half of those tracked statewide projects — 49 percent — are converting offices into apartments, while roughly 30 percent are becoming industrial or logistics space. Separately, New Jersey Business Magazine put the total office space proposed or undergoing conversion statewide at about 24.2 million square feet. Much of this activity is tied to financial pressure: more than $213 billion in office-building loans were coming due by the end of 2026, per the Inquirer.
Other large-scale conversions are moving forward around the region. In Philadelphia, TF Cornerstone and Alterra Property Group are planning 600 loft-style apartments inside the Wanamaker Building, while PMC Property Group and Dean Adler are eyeing a Centre Square redevelopment with 250 to 500 apartments and 300 hotel rooms. In Parsippany, the District at 15fifteen is transforming a former Intel corporate campus into a 498-unit complex with retail amenities, Real Estate NJ reported. Down the shore, Odin Properties is converting Atlantic City's eight-story Schwehm Building into 56 loft apartments, including 11 set aside as affordable units, at an estimated cost of $22.5 million, according to Jersey Digs.
For Voorhees, the Four Echelon Plaza project offers a chance to breathe new life into a building that spent years standing empty. With planning board approval secured, the conversion into 178 apartments now moves toward the next phase of redevelopment.
