A shuttered South Jersey golf course was approved for warehouses. Years later, construction still hasn’t started.

Nearly two years after being approved by Chesterfield Township, the plan to build a warehouse on a shuttered golf course still hasn’t started construction.

The Old York Country Club was purchased by New Jersey-based real estate developer Active Acquisitions in 2022 with plans to build at least one warehouse totaling up to about 1.1 million square feet, according to the redevelopment agreement. The project currently includes plans for a single building, but a second warehouse could be permitted — with the two buildings totaling up to 1.3 million square feet — if it were to be dedicated to cannabis cultivation or manufacturing, according to the township.

Four years later, the developers are still working to obtain the final approvals and permits needed to start construction at 228 York Rd. with hopes to finally break ground early next year, Active Acquisitions founder Seth Gerszberg said.

The developers have not identified a tenant for the future site, but Gerszberg said that regardless of who moves in, the property will operate as a traditional warehouse or logistics center with large trucks coming and going from the building throughout the day.

The anticipated work at the 156-acre property was approved in November 2024 and comes more than six years after the township designated the site as an “area in need of rehabilitation” in May 2020.

The sprawling golf course closed in 2021 in part due to pandemic-era drops in revenue and memberships. In the years since, the township’s redevelopment efforts have drawn some public pushback.

Following the initial approval of a redevelopment plan for the site in October 2022, a neighborhood group called Save Old York filed a lawsuit against the township. While it was ultimately dismissed in court, the lawsuit argued that the redevelopment plan did not conform to the township’s master plan and amounted to “spot zoning” from agricultural to commercial.

But Chesterfield Administrator George Jackson, who began working in the township in 2024, argues that the project presents a rare opportunity for the township to welcome a new taxpayer with deep pockets.

Much of Chesterfield’s 21 square miles is preserved farmland that is unable to be developed, Jackson said, which significantly limits new commercial development opportunities. The tax rates for preserved farmland is also much lower than the rates for residential or commercial properties, he said.

“You need the balance in your ratables,” Jackson said of the township’s tax base. “[The warehouse] could take some of the burden off of our residential taxpayers.”

With a municipal budget of roughly $6.7 million in 2026, the potential yearly tax revenue generated by the new warehouse is expected to be around $2 million — nearly 30% of Chesterfield’s total budget, he said.

“Our opportunities to increase our tax base are very, very limited and this is an opportunity to really increase it dramatically,” he said.

As the developers work to secure an end-user for the future warehouse, both Gerzberg and Jackson emphasized that the one thing they know for sure is that it won’t be an Amazon fulfillment center.

The redevelopment agreement specifically prohibits that type of warehouse use on the site while also requiring that vehicles exiting the property make a left turn onto Old York Road in an effort to keep truck traffic out of the center of town, Jackson said.

Additionally, the site’s location about a half-mile away from Route 206 and adjacent to two existing warehouses across the street make it “a prime location for warehouse development,” Jackson said.

“The township went through some great measures to ensure that it doesn’t turn into a big commercial trucking route in certain areas of the township,” he said. “They want that traffic to go out to the highway.”