One of Mike Pryzbylkowski’s vivid memories of growing up in Evesham, Burlington County, was back-to-school shopping trips to Boscov’s department store at the nearby Moorestown Mall.
Malls everywhere have fallen on hard times, and many are reinventing themselves – something that Pryzbylkowski has a role in within the shadow of the same still-open Boscov’s he visited as a kid.
Pryzbylkowski, vice president/Northeast for Harkins Builders Inc., was recently checking in on the progress at the Pearl Apartment Homes, 375 units under construction next to Boscov’s.
The project, developed by Bel Canto Asset Growth Fund of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, will have 75 affordable housing units mixed with the market-rate ones. Harkins is the construction manager and general contractor. The project is scheduled to be completed by summer next year.
Harkins’ two other projects in New Jersey are Brightview Laurel Point in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, and Brightview Brick in Brick, Ocean County. Both are senior living projects.
The Mount Laurel project’s 173 units on Route 38 are expected to be done by the second quarter of 2028. The Brick project’s 176 units on Route 88 are scheduled to be completed by next summer.
Brightview, a developer and owner of 55 senior housing locations from Massachusetts to Virginia, has been a Harkins client since 1974.
Pryzbylkowski, based in Harkins regional office in Pennsylvania, is bullish on construction in New Jersey.
“We see New Jersey has a lot of potential for future projects, particularly in the multifamily space,” Pryzbylkowski told Jersey Digs in an interview. “New Jersey is absolutely a focus of mine,” he said
The state is a hot area for senior living, said Pryzbylkowski, who said Harkins will open a New Jersey office in the future, likely north of Princeton.
One obvious market for high-end senior living is the seniors who leave their larger homes in New Jersey but want to live in the state for family or other reasons.
But Pryzbylkowski said a big source of tenants for New Jersey senior living are those who decide to move out of the Philadelphia or New York City areas.
New Jersey is one of the strong markets in the Mid-Atlantic states, with Harkins offices in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, up there with New Jersey. Central Virginia, in the Richmond and Tidewater areas, likely is the third, he said.
Another attractive market is driven by municipalities working with developers to fulfill their communities’ latest affordable housing commitments.
“We definitely see affordable housing in the state of New Jersey as a potential growth area over the next five to 10 years,” he said.
Harkins, based in Columbia, Maryland, is different from many construction management firms because it is 100% employee-owned, which Pryzbylkowski said instills pride in its workforce of 360.
“In the construction industry, a lot of people move around from one firm to another,” he said. At Harkins, “everybody is working for a common goal.”
Over the years, 10% of eligible compensation has been contributed by Harkins to each employee’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan account, according to the company’s website. The individual plans are converted to cash for retirement.
Pryzbylkowski, now a Cherry Hill resident, received his undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech and his MBA from Rutgers-Camden.
He said overseeing construction of a project so close to home is especially rewarding for him.
“I grew up going to Moorestown Mall as a child,” he said.
