New home for Camden County social services building

The Camden County Board of Social Services, long headquartered in the building next to Camden City Hall, is moving to Mount Ephraim Avenue in the coming years. Once the move is complete, the Aletha R. Wright Administration Building on Market Street will be demolished and replaced with a park, county officials said, flanking City Hall with grass instead of concrete.

A 195,000-square-foot campus will be built for the Board of Social Services on the 2600 block of Mount Ephraim, in the city's Fairview section, county officials said. The new facility will consolidate the board and the county's job-training and resource center, which is already located there.

County officials hope to break ground on the $60 million project this spring, said Louis Cappelli Jr., director of the Camden County Board of Freeholders. The earliest it could be finished is winter 2018, he said.

"This is something that's sorely needed," Cappelli said. "The building downtown is obsolete."

The new location will hold 700 employees and serve an estimated 2,500 clients a day, providing services that include help with Medicaid, food stamps, child support, and other matters. The site is about four miles from the current location, and is accessible by NJ Transit bus routes.

The freeholder board will seek a bond to finance the project, Cappelli said.

The current location in downtown Camden once housed the Lit Bros. department store but has deteriorated over the years, and Cappelli said it's the source of frequent complaints from employees and clients.

County officials hope the move will also encourage commercial business development on Mount Ephraim Avenue, where there are several fast-food restaurants, a dollar store, grocery, and other shops, as well as a Department of Motor Vehicles office.

"We hope that the folks who work there will support those businesses," Cappelli said.

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