Wooden spools in Mount Laurel

A township at Turnpike exit 4

Mount Laurel Township, in western Burlington County, grew from farmland into one of South Jersey's main business districts because of where it sits: at exit 4 of the New Jersey Turnpike, where NJ 73 crosses, with I-295 running alongside and NJ 38 along the north. Corporate offices, regional headquarters, hotels, warehouses and distribution buildings cluster around those roads, while the rest of the township is suburban neighbourhoods, parks and the remains of its farms.

Where reels come from

• Corporate offices. Office parks along NJ 73, Fellowship Road and Centerton Road are refitted for new tenants, bringing new lighting, power and data. That leaves plywood spools and mid-size reels.
• Hotels. The many hotels around the Turnpike interchange renovate regularly, room by room or floor by floor, leaving spools and small reels.
• Warehouses. Distribution buildings near the Turnpike and I-295 produce mid-size and large reels from fit-outs and upgrades.
• Homes. Rewiring, solar, generators and car chargers in Mount Laurel's neighbourhoods produce small reels and spools.

Roads

The NJ Turnpike's exit 4 is at NJ 73, which runs northwest through Maple Shade and Pennsauken to the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, and southeast toward Marlton and Berlin. I-295 runs parallel to the Turnpike through the township. NJ 38 runs east–west along the north, from Cherry Hill to Moorestown and beyond. For runs to Philadelphia, a truck takes NJ 73 to the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge or NJ 38 and NJ 70 west to Camden and the Ben Franklin.

Offices and hotels

Office buildings and hotels usually have a loading area and a manager who can let us in. Tell us:

1. the building and the loading area;
2. the best times to come, avoiding check-in and check-out at hotels;
3. who will meet us and release the reels;
4. roughly how many reels and spools there are.

Warehouses

Warehouses near the Turnpike are straightforward: docks, forklifts, open yards. Put reels together, separate broken ones, flag any returnables, and tell us the dock hours.

Combining with Moorestown and Cherry Hill

Mount Laurel sits between Moorestown and Cherry Hill, and pickups in all three are often combined. Small requests ride along.

Buying in Mount Laurel

Offices, restaurants and homeowners sometimes want reels as tables or decor, and landscapers want them for hose. We deliver when we are collecting nearby. See buying reels.

From orchards to office campuses

Before the Turnpike opened in the early 1950s, Mount Laurel was a farming township of fields and small crossroads villages. The interchange changed everything. Over the following decades, farms became business campuses, motels and later full-service hotels lined NJ 73, and housing developments filled the land between. A few farm fields and the township's parks still break up the development, and you can still find agricultural outbuildings tucked behind newer subdivisions, sometimes holding an old reel or two.

What kinds of businesses are here

Mount Laurel's corporate offices include insurance, finance, health-care administration, software, engineering and telecommunications firms, many in low-rise buildings with large surface parking lots. That layout matters for reels:

• parking-lot lighting and charging stations need underground feeders, which come on mid-size reels;
• server rooms and network closets get refreshed every few years, leaving spools of Category cable and fibre jumpers;
• emergency generators and transfer switches need short runs of heavy cable;
• roof replacements often include new rooftop units and the power to feed them.

Hotel renovations, floor by floor

Hotels near exit 4 tend to renovate in phases so that most rooms stay open. Each phase brings new lighting, outlets, USB charging, televisions and sometimes new heating and cooling units, so an electrician might use a dozen spools of building wire per floor. Those spools are light and stackable, but they add up quickly in a back-of-house corridor. We can collect them between phases so they do not crowd a service area, or all at once when the project wraps up.

Residential streets and townhouse communities

Many of the township's neighbourhoods are townhouse communities with shared driveways and homeowners' associations. If your reels are at such a property, check whether the association has rules about trucks or collection times, and tell us which visitor spaces are closest to your door.

Questions to answer before we quote

A good request saves a site visit. Count the reels, or estimate within a few; note the biggest flange diameter; say whether they are timber, plywood, plastic or steel; mention whether any still hold cable; and describe the ground the truck will stand on, whether asphalt, gravel or grass. Soft lawns behind townhouses are no place for a loaded box truck after rain, so we may carry reels across on a dolly instead.

Questions

Do you cover Marlton, Maple Shade and Lumberton?

Yes, along with Evesham, Hainesport and the rest of western Burlington County.

Can you collect from a hotel at night?

Sometimes. Daytime is easier, but tell us what suits the hotel.