I pulled these comments from a cross-posting of my post After “investment,” Camden neighborhoods struggle to get their fair share of resources over at Blue Jersey:
Josef: This is all so important to talk about as we head forward with these tax breaks and as these companies move into the city. As much as I love that a company of young, tech-savy, and possibly city-friendly people, Webimax, is coming into town, I struggle to see them integrating much with downtown. Like you said, those buildings are so far removed from the rest of the city that you can drive in and drive out without ever being on the non-waterfront, and it’s the same story for Lockheed or the 76ers. They’re isolated, alone in a sea of parking lots, with nothing around them to even capture their lunchtime dollars. The tax breaks they’ve received represent the literal least you can do to help the local economy.
What I believe needs to happen is a multi-faceted campaign to bring more businesses to Market Street and Broadway and people to patronize them. We have to un-silo people if any of this is going to mean anything for the city. There’s so much potential downtown already; the “eds and meds” really do bring so many people downtown on the weekdays even before you get into the L3 and waterfront workers. But to get those people out from their buildings, downtown needs more than pizza shops. It needs goods and services just like any downtown, and the weekday foot traffic on those two streets I mentioned are more than any charming suburban downtown’s in the area. The potential is there, but it needs vision beyond tax breaks to work. The city only needs to look to its bigger brother, Philadelphia, which itself struggled with keeping people downtown in the 1990s, and which has succeeded spectacularly at it.
In some ways it’s a chicken and egg problem, with storefronts staying empty because workers don’t get out of their buildings, and workers staying in their buildings because there’s nowhere to go. I wonder if a streamlined support system for local businesses isn’t in order for helping to bolster local businesses that really help a city thrive. Can we attract small businesses to Broadway, to capture the Cooper Hospital and Rowan-Cooper students there on a daily basis? Or to all those empty storefronts on Market Street west of 5th Street? (The latter is particularly frustrating to me, as thousands of people walk past those empty lots and buildings from PATCO on their way to the waterfront on event days. Those could be businesses getting new patrons, attracting money, giving people places to eat or hang out before and after shows, for instance.) And once we do that, can we then build up a marketing campaign to get people out of their buildings? Think of Visit Philly, Collingswood’s intense community building efforts, or any other venture in the region to prettify and market a town’s commercial area. Camden has a special services district, but it seems they do nothing of this sort. All of these are important pieces of building a vibrant downtown, and they’re all severely lacking in Camden.
All of this is part of the reason I’m more looking forward to projects built on lots in the heart of downtown than in isolated areas. For instance, Rutgers is supposed to be constructing a nursing building at 5th and Federal Streets, where there’s currently an immense break in the urban fabric. And a company is rehabbing historical buildings across from Cooper-Rowan for residential units. I think these types of projects have more potential to bring economic growth downtown than tax-break recipients far away on the water.
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