Tag: Burlington County

Willingboro is finally ready to raise the curtain on the township’s new arts and culture venue with its first performance on Saturday.

The celebration for the opening of the new 570-seat Willingboro Performing Arts Center, located in the Kennedy Center, will kick off with a performance by R&B group Atlantic Starr.

Crews transformed what was previously the high school auditorium into a revamped space designed for concerts, theatre productions, dance performances, lectures, and more.

The venue “is envisioned as a premier community gathering place where residents and visitors can enjoy concerts, theatrical productions, cultural programs, family entertainment, community events, and other performing arts experiences,” the township said in a press release announcing the opening.

Another highlight of the new space is that it gives Burlington County residents the chance to see world-class performances without needing to cross the bridge into Philadelphia, theater manager Bobby Duckett said.

“We want to invite everybody from the region to come by and see what we do,” Duckett said.

Following years of informal discussion about creating a hub for the performing arts in town, the effort to build the new concert hall started in earnest around 2023, Willingboro spokesperson Tanya Jackson said. The project cost around $2 million, with about half from township capital funds and half from state funding, she said.

“Willingboro is the home of many talented artists and performers, and we just wanted to create a space for residents and surrounding community members to come together to experience music and theatre, cultural programming, and those types of things,” Jackson said. “Willingboro is an ideal place for a performing arts center just based on all of the great talent that has come through this community.”

After opening night, the new venue has two more shows currently scheduled for this fall: a concert by R&B group The Manhattans on Oct. 24 and a performance by percussionist Tito Puente Jr. on Nov. 20.

Tickets and more information are available on the center’s website.

“Willingboro has a very rich legacy in the entertainment world,” Duckett said. “[The center is] about bringing those people back to be a part of it as we develop the next generation of talented people from this community.”

A large part of South Jersey’s sprawling Pine Barrens region will be the focus of a new climate change study.

The Burlington County Southwest Pinelands Regional Resiliency Study will assess the climate change threats facing Evesham, Medford, Medford Lakes, Shamong, and Tabernacle, and it will be led by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) in partnership with Burlington County and the nonprofit Pinelands Alliance.

The study will also include suggestions for how these towns can better recover from future climate events such as wildfires, floods, heatwaves, and more.

“Climate change is no longer abstract or theoretical; it’s now a physical reality impacting our communities and infrastructure,” Burlington County Commissioner Deputy Director Allison Eckel said in a statement. “No part of Burlington County is immune, and Burlington County’s Pinelands towns are increasingly at risk from more frequent and intense wildfires, inland flooding, droughts, heatwaves, storms, and other impacts from climate change.”

Experts will utilize climate and environmental data, impacts from past weather events, and more to identify the region’s climate vulnerabilities and develop resiliency action plans, according to a statement from the county.

Burlington County and each of the participating towns will also be eligible for up to $350,000 in grant funding from the NJDEP to put the resiliency plans in place.

The county expects to begin work on the study in early 2027 and to conduct various workshops and surveys to get public input, said Burlington County spokesperson David Levinsky.

The Pinelands study comes not long after the county completed a similar climate change resiliency investigation of the Route 130 corridor stretching across 11 municipalities and along the Delaware River and its tributaries.

The previous study took a little more than a year to complete, Levinsky said, and officials predict that the timeline for the forthcoming work will be similar.

“The Route 130 Corridor Study generated substantial public input and engagement from our Delaware River communities and resulted in recommendations for each municipality to take to mitigate climate change threats,” Eckel said. “We’re excited to partner with the NJDEP again on this new study focused on our Pinelands towns and the climate challenges unique to them. We’re hoping to get the same kind of public engagement, and that the end result is an action plan that helps these communities become better prepared.”

Both studies are part of the agency’s Resilient NJ program, established in 2014 to help communities across the state plan for potential climate change impacts.

Bordered by a riverfront park to the north and Broad Street to the south, a roughly quarter-mile stretch of High Street has long been the commercial heart of Burlington City.

Today, the historic corridor is still home to the traditional businesses that locals expect downtown, like law offices and insurance agencies, but the street is also showing signs of new life as taprooms, art studios, and more have begun moving in.

Yet mixed in among all of these businesses, both old and new, remains a smattering of closed or vacant storefronts. Tucked between bustling barber shops and antique stores, some buildings are boarded up entirely while others still boast sun-faded window displays.

It’s these empty storefronts that are, in part, holding Burlington back from reaching its full potential, according to the New London Alliance (NLA), a neighborhood group based just south of Broad Street.

The group argues that the number of inactive storefronts makes the area feel unwelcome for pedestrians, especially at night, said NLA member Donnamarie Mazzola.

In an effort to address this, the group is calling for dedicated police foot patrols downtown — not necessarily because crime is increasing, Mazzola said, but to help create a more comfortable environment for locals and visitors alike.

“We’re asking the city to consider restoring regular police foot patrols and community policing downtown,” Mazzola said. “We believe having officers present and engaging with residents, businesses, and visitors can help strengthen both public safety and the relationship between the police and the community.”

Simply knowing cops are walking around downtown might be enough to make people feel more safe to do the same, she said.

“We have a huge problem with abandoned buildings and absentee landlords, so our downtown is nowhere near the kind of vibrant downtown that people would love,” she said. “And it kind of detracts from that sense of safety and walkability that people really come here searching for.”

Since the NLA began circulating a community petition at the end of July, Mazzola said, the group has collected a few hundred signatures in support of the foot patrols.

The petition itself, Mazzola said, is essentially a way to come to city officials with hard data demonstrating a desire for these services beyond just the NLA.

“We’re hoping that [the petition] sends a signal to the mayor that this is an important priority for the community and that he then kicks off an initiative with the stakeholders and community input,” she said.

While it is still just an idea, some longtime High Street business owners are already on board.

After more than two decades operating Virtu Millinery & Accessories on the corner of Union Street, Marie Salter recently began locking her front door after a frightening incident with someone who appeared to be suffering from mental illness, she said.

If police were walking around the area throughout the day, it might prevent a similar situation from happening again, she said.

“I would welcome it,” Salter said of possible foot patrols outside her boutique hat shop. “I could keep my door open.”

Down the block, Philip Augustyn, another longtime High Street business owner, agreed that it would be a welcome sight.

Augustyn and his wife, Maryanne, have operated Philip’s Antiques & Furniture at 307 High St. for more than 20 years — enough time to remember “years and years ago” when police would regularly walk by, Philip Augustyn said.

“I’ve been here a long time,” he said. “There’s not a lot of crime down here to begin with, but I think people would just feel better to see the police walking up and down. The merchants, plus any of the tourists or local people, they’d like to see the police on patrol.”

A few stores down, Olde City Quilts co-owner Rob Engime also looked back fondly on a time when foot patrols were commonplace in the area.

In the early years of their shop, Engime said, he and his wife would sometimes get calls from police officers who noticed their storefront was unlocked as they made their nightly patrols. Once, when cops found the door cracked open, they walked a police dog through the property just to make sure no one had broken in, he said.

There was a neighborly energy with law enforcement at the time, he said, in large part because locals often recognized officers from growing up in the city.

“It was great,” Engime said of that time. “It did have a sense that it was much friendlier.”

After 20 years on what he calls “the busiest street that doesn’t go anywhere,” Engime said, he still loves the neighborhood but would welcome the return of the foot patrols he used to know.

“It was a lot of fun and we felt a connection with them,” he said. “But now you never see them.”

It is unclear when Burlington last had dedicated foot patrols downtown or if the department has the staffing capabilities to have any officers on foot. The Burlington City Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Obviously I’m sure any police department would love to have enough staffing to have somebody on every corner,” Burlington Mayor Barry Conaway said. “But we know that’s not reality.”

When asked about the NLA’s petition, Conaway said he was unable to comment more specifically on the matter until it is officially filed with the city.

But he did share the group’s desire to bring more pedestrians downtown.

“Every small town, including Burlington, wants to have more foot traffic downtown,” Conaway said, noting that the River Line and nearby bus stops give the city a unique opportunity to bring in people.

Amid the community’s efforts to boost foot traffic along High Street, the belief held by many residents and business owners — that crime downtown is not increasing — is hard to verify.

The city did not respond to a public records request seeking crime statistics specifically for this stretch of High Street and instead referred the request to the New Jersey State Police. The state police in turn pointed to Burlington’s citywide crime statistics, which are compiled annually.

Still collecting signatures, the NLA plans to finally bring the petition to city officials in the fall, Mazzola said. In the meantime, she said, the group is working to get the proposal in front of as many residents as possible.

“In Burlington, there are pockets of community groups that are very, very interested in making Burlington better, and the NLA is really one of those groups,” Mazzola said.

“There’s just so much potential that’s been untapped,” she said.