Making Progress
By Albert B. Kelly
When it comes to being an elected official at the local level and the goal of making progress in your community, the frustrating thing is that a good deal of the progress happens behind the scenes. That’s why, come election time, you see elected officials trying to rustle up all sorts of visual things to show they’ve been working hard and making progress.
If you’re living a charmed life, the projects you’ve been nurturing along will start the brick and mortar phase about the same time election season gets into full swing. However, if things go at the glacial pace that is bureaucracy generally, there is not much visual stuff to see and what is left is trying to describe what’s in the works and why you hope to get a little more time to see things through to completion.
One of the things that does not help is the lack of a local newspaper. Not all that many years ago, local newspapers covered planning board meetings, zoning board meetings and City Council meetings so that the average citizen had a decent idea of what was happening around them. The disappearance of so many smaller newspapers across the country has made staying informed about community and civic life that much harder.
All of that is to say that we’re making progress. At a recent planning board meeting, plans were approved for construction of a retail cannabis store that will be located between the recently completed Wawa on Route 49 and the old City Hall building. As for the former City Hall, the State Historic Preservation Office has been providing guidance to project architects who are now finalizing plans to redo the building into a new fire and EMS facility.
Providing new facilities matters because the Bridgeton Fire Department, including our EMS Division, in addition to serving our residents in Bridgeton, also serve several of our township neighbors. This means providing first responder services for slightly more than 50,000 people over an area that exceeds 70 square miles. It’s not yet visible, but progress is being made and will shortly start the brick and mortar phase of restoring the former City Hall into a beautiful community asset.
Other areas of progress include our close working relationship with Shoreline Freezers who received Planning Board approval to expand their facilities in the Burlington Road Industrial Park. This expansion will include the creation of approximately two dozen new jobs with the team at Shoreline is focused on hiring Bridgeton residents.
Significant though not yet visible is the progress taking place at the former Port Authority site along Grove Street. Grotech has received approval to undertake development of the site and convert the 83,000 square foot warehouse into a cannabis cultivation and manufacturing operation. With an investment of over $12 million, the end result will be 75 jobs when all phases are complete.
Other projects progressing toward the brick and mortar phase include a four-phase housing project that will see 150 new housing units along with a 72-unit over 55 facility in the Phoenix Redevelopment Area off of Burlington Road. These new homes will be adjacent to a townhouse project that will come before the Planning Board in early 2023.
Also, on the near horizon are approvals for a new Taco Bell restaurant next to the State Building along Route 49. Like the other projects, this will expand the ratable base and create a couple of dozen additional jobs in the community on top of these being created by Shoreline and Grotech.
Other projects that are working through their paces include design plans being developed through the NJ EDA for the adaptive reuse of the former landfill in City Park, that will likely include walking trails, bike trails and related amenities. Equally exciting for me is the fact that the tennis courts in City Park will be resurfaced with one of them being converted into a futsal court ready for play in mid-2023.
Finally, behind the scenes progress on the former “Tin Can” recreation site on Southeast Ave is well underway, but because it was once a landfill, we must start with an environmental investigation to find out what’s in the ground before we can develop the site. This will take years, but I hope to create the “Matthew Wright Recreation Center” to provide neighborhood-based opportunities.
All of these projects are making progress, they require time, something I hope to have a little more of in the days ahead.