Kobe Grill Sushi and Seafood Buffet opened its doors on Route 70 East in the Tri-Towne Plaza early last year. It abruptly closed those doors early last month.
The restaurant’s website, still active, continues to list a banner advertising its “Grand Opening” and describing the establishment’s “Great Place, Great Selection, Great Price.”
It’s to be seen whether Kobe stands by the “Great Place” description, as Evesham Mayor Randy Brown said that when the restaurant closed, it did so by packing up and leaving overnight, failing to even notify the township.
Brown said for months, Kobe had been complaining about a leaky roof to Tri-Towne Plaza owner and manager Evesham Owner L.L.C., an affiliate of RD Management in New York.
“It’s business 101,” Brown said. “If you want Class-A tenants, you have to have a Class-A facility.”
With Kobe gone, the nearly 180,000-square-foot strip mall and shopping center is almost vacant. Aside from a single martial arts studio and a seasonal H&R Block occupant, no businesses remain in the plaza.
The two biggest spaces within the property include a former Sears department store that closed several years ago and a former SuperFresh supermarket that closed early last year. Brown has said he believes the SuperFresh, like Kobe Grill, also closed because of RD Management’s failure to properly maintain the buildings.
“There is obviously a direct correlation between how the property is managed and the state of disrepair it’s in and why they can’t keep a client or get new clients,” Brown said.
Lawyer for Kobe Grill, Don Benedetto of the Bahuriak Law Group in Philadelphia, declined to comment at this time.
Kobe’s closure is just the newest chapter in Evesham’s history of dealing with the aging Tri-Towne plaza.
At the end of 2012, council authorized the planning board to start looking into several properties throughout Evesham to be included in a redevelopment and rehabilitation plan. In July 2013, council accepted the zoning board’s recommended plan, which included Tri-Towne Plaza as an area marked for redevelopment.
Following Kobe’s closure, council moved at its March 18 meeting to introduce an ordinance reaffirming the township’s desire to continue pursuing means by which redevelopment properties could be privately redeveloped, but which also reaffirmed the township’s right to authorize the acquisition of properties located within the township redevelopment area if necessary.
RD Management’s lawyers have previously tried to remove Tri-Towne Plaza from the township’s redevelopment plan but were unsuccessful.
RD Management’s lawyers declined to comment.
Brown said he assumes RD Management is now talking to other private owners to sell the property once they find out the market value, but the use of eminent domain was also a possibility, albeit in the future.
“We’re waiting for the appraisals to come in,” Brown said. “Once the appraisals come in, we’ll have to begin a negotiation with RD Management.”
Township solicitor John Gillespie said the township is also in litigation with RD Management concerning whether the 2013 redevelopment ordinance governs what businesses RD Management can build in Tri-Towne Plaza, or if the property still falls under an older ordinance from 2010 that provides a different framework for the development of commercial properties in the area.
Gillespie said RD Management brought forth plans for a childcare center, but it was the township’s belief that a childcare center wouldn’t bring people into the plaza long enough to do any shopping or business.
“A childcare center doesn’t advance the commercial nature of that site,” Gillespie said. “They don’t advance the idea of that site as a commercial mixed-use center.”
Gillespie said he sees three general outcomes regarding the Tri-Towne Plaza property.
Option one is for RD Management to provide the council and zoning board with detailed plans that cause the township to accept that RD Management has realistic goals for advancing the commercial nature of the property.
Option two is for the appraisals to come back and for RD Management to agree with the assessment but move toward selling the property to another private developer who would then assume responsibility for redeveloping the property.
Option three is for the appraisals to come back and for RD Management to disagree with the assessment, in which case the township could potentially use the power of eminent domain to acquire the property and find a new redeveloper.
“Whether or not we move forward with acquisition, that remains to be seen,” Gillespie said.
