Mount Laurel advances plan for hotel at the Funplex

There are 28 hotels in Mount Laurel, but only one Funplex, that nearly inescapable - for South Jersey parents - cluster of rides and arcades on Route 38 where youngsters since 1997 have blown out birthday candles, steered go-carts, swooped down water slides, chased one another with "laser" guns, and dropped miniature cranes onto maddeningly elusive toys, all to a backdrop of pulsing lights and music.

So what might the township get if Funplex added a hotel to its merry mayhem?

The answer, says Funplex's president: a standard hotel.

"It won't be a Funplex hotel. Not a 'funtel,' " said Randy Lahn, CEO of Cherry Hill-based Falls Group L.L.C., which also owns and operates a Funplex in East Hanover, Morris County.

The Mount Laurel planning board last month preliminarily approved Lahn's proposal to build a 131-room hotel on the 25-acre Funplex site opposite a Burlington County College campus. Also given preliminary OKs were two restaurant pad sites on the parcel and a new entrance to the complex off Route 38.

But no laser tag in the hotel lobby, please.

Although the unnamed five-story hotel and restaurants will share parking with the amusement center - the planning board approved an additional 382 spaces - Lahn sees them as separate enterprises with partially overlapping customer bases.

"We wanted to make the highest and best use for the properties," Lahn, of Cherry Hill, said in an interview. "So we've segregated the different uses."

The eateries will sit side by side, set back 100 feet from Route 38, with the hotel rising behind them.

Lahn's firm is in discussion with a hotel chain he declined to name to become the proprietary owner of the lodging.

He said he was seeking occupants for the 5,000-square-foot restaurant sites. "We're looking for family restaurants, but not fast food," he said.

The planning board will decide whether to give final approvals for the buildings after prospective tenants or owners of the sites present detailed design plans, Lahn said. The proposal has encountered no opposition from neighbors, he said.

In September the planning board gave final approval to a Dunkin' Donuts store that is due to open on the site next year on the corner of Briggs Road and Route 38, at the western edge of the property.

While the hotel and restaurants will be separate from the amusement complex, Lahn said there will be a "synergy" between them.

"Hotels usually don't do big business in summer" and typically rely on business travelers, he said.

Lahn is banking that the proximity of the Funplex will make the hotel attractive in summer to vacationing families who want to spend a few days visiting both Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore, and wouldn't mind playing Foam Frenzy after dinner.

The site is about five miles from most of the hotels in Mount Laurel, which are clustered along Route 73 near entrances to the New Jersey Turnpike and I-295.

Though tastes change and certain attractions, such as driving ranges, fall out of favor over time, Funplex has "a critical mass of rides that broadly appeal to the whole family," Lahn said.

Starting summer, visitors to the Mount Laurel Funplex will encounter a new, "not overly frightening" outdoor roller-coaster, Lahn said. With seats four across, the "funcoaster" is designed so that parents and children can hold hands. It will replace the "kiddie" go-cart track.

In 2011, the two Funplexes were named the best "family-entertainment centers" in North America by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

Lahn's firm decided in 2008 to seek approval for the hotel and restaurants, even as the national economy started its long decline.

"We could see where things were going," said Lahn's partner and cousin, Michael Dorn of Medford. "But we knew [township approval] would take a while, and we're banking the economy will get better."

The planning board was more welcoming this time around than 15 years ago, Lahn and Dorn agreed. Back then, it refused a proposal by the privately held Falls Group to offer "skill-based redemption games," in which players trade accumulated coupons or tokens for prizes. The firm sued the township in 2009 and won on appeal last year.

Lahn said he thought the township was more receptive to the hotel and restaurants plan because it has seen a marked decline in commercial real estate applications in recent years. Despite the legal battle, the township "sees us as neighbors who've been here a long time," he said.

Mount Laurel Mayor James Keenan agreed that the township does see far fewer development applications than it did in the boom period that began in the 1970s.

"The town is now built out to about 80 percent of capacity," Keenan said. "Space is limited. But we welcome any development of good quality, and Funplex has been in town many years."

And Lahn expects it to be there many years more. "It's been my observation," he said, "that parents always need a way to spend money on their kids."