Haddon Ave. aims to become Main St.

Douglas M. Bovitt/Courier-Post

By LAVINIA DeCASTRO
Courier-Post Staff

It has the potential of becoming Camden County's Main Street.

For the past two decades, the less than three-mile stretch of Haddon Avenue from Collingswood to Haddonfield has been undergoing a transformation.

A decade or two from now, the transformation will be complete. The goal being that the avenue will emerge as a major shopping destination.

The catalyst of the transformation is Haddon Township.

Nestled between charming Collingswood and historic Haddonfield, the largest of the three municipalities has spent most of the past few years in the shadow of its more illustrious neighbors.

Haddonfield has been a major destination since Colonial times and Collingswood has emerged as Camden County's redevelopment darling with its transformed downtown and eclectic mix of shops.

But with three major redevelopment projects in the works, the impact of Westmont's planned transformation could be felt beyond the township's border.

"It would be great to see the three towns working together to bring about one big downtown shopping district," Haddon Township Mayor Randall Teague said. "I think we each have our own niche, but we complement each other nicely."

The township has beefed up its effort to attract more businesses to Westmont and the avenue, with its newly installed parking meters, brick crosswalks and period lighting. The avenue is now home to a new Mexican restaurant, coffee shop and a pub.

Officials there say that's a small sample of what's to come.

Towne Center at Haddon, a transit village development with more than 200 homes and retail space, is planned for an eight-acre site that once housed a defunct diaper laundering plant. The Dy-Dee diaper laundry was demolished more than a year ago, along with several nearby properties, and environmental cleanup of the site is set to begin soon.

Just a few blocks away, 70 townhouses are planned for the former Russell Cast Stone site.

These two developments alone could bring more than 500 new residents to Westmont.

Theater's role

Nestled between them is the Westmont Theater, one of the avenue's most recognizable landmarks.

The fate of the 82-year-old vaudeville house is still far from decided, but a group of residents is working on restoring some of the theater's old glory.

"The theater, being on Haddon Avenue between Haddonfield and Collingswood, could be the driving force to redevelop the whole Haddon Avenue corridor," said Allen Hauss, president of Neighbors Celebrating the Westmont.

Previous efforts to revitalize the theater have failed.

The township severed an agreement it had with the Westmont Redevelopment Group LLC since 2004 when the group failed to submit a final site plan. The group, headed by Joanna Pang, who also operates the Trocadero in Philadelphia, could not find enough parking for the live performing arts venue planned for the theater.

The group's plan also called for two restaurants, a catering facility and a specialty food store in a three-story building that would extend from the theater to Albertson Avenue.

That building would sit on three properties the Westmont Group bought for a combined $825,000 back in 2005.

The severance of that agreement lead to a $15 million federal lawsuit and court-ordered injunction preventing the township from selling the building or signing a deal with a new redeveloper.

Despite the injunction, three developers showed interest in the property.

A federal judge recently ruled in favor of the township and the Neighbors Celebrating the Westmont, an organization with more than 100 members, was born.

Hauss' group hopes to renovate the 1,200-seat theater, recently placed in the New Jersey Register of Historic Places, and reopen it as a venue for live performances and classic and independent films.

"It's such an ideal location because it's close to the PATCO Hi-Speedline," said Hauss, author of "South Jersey Movie Houses." "It has the potential to revitalize that whole corridor."

Work has already started to stabilize the theater's crumbling marquee and weatherproof the building, Hauss said.

He estimates renovations will cost roughly $5 million, which he hopes to raise through a combination of private and public funds including grants and donations.

"There's no reason we can't do it," said Hauss, a Maple Shade resident who was once a projectionist at the Westmont. "If you look at the Levoid in Millville, the Landis in Vineland and the Broadway Theatre in Pitman, you know it can be done."

Collingswood model

"There's a lot going on in Haddon Township," said Gerard Banmiller, president of First Colonial National Bank in Collingswood. "The train disgorges thousands of people onto Haddon Avenue every day. Most of those people get in their cars and go home, but maybe they'll go to dinner in Collingswood, then a cocktail in Westmont. This makes ultimate sense, to have a continuous stream from Collingswood to Haddonfield."

Banmiller said the Towne Center at Haddon project has the potential to attract more stores to Westmont, potentially bringing the same type of revitalization Collingswood has experienced to Westmont.

"Westmont needs more of the shopping kind of stores," said Banmiller, who is also president of Collingswood's Business Improvement District. "They are so close to two successful towns. They should do well. Now, I think it's going to happen. It may take them as long as it took Collingswood, but they have to start somewhere."

Collingswood's road to redevelopment started in 1996 with the renovation of Sutton Towers, a 1,036-unit high rise complex now known as the Heights of Collingswood.

The borough and New York-based Capital Properties spent $45 million to purchase and renovate the complex in 1996 -- $35 million from a Camden County Improvement Authority loan, $7.7 million from the borough and the rest from Capital Properties. The building was in such bad shape then that half of its units were vacant.

Ten years later, the building was sold for $68 million. It netted the borough a $4 million profit, two-thirds of which is being redistributed to borough taxpayers.

"If that wasn't redeveloped, we would have lost the revenue from the taxes and we would have lost the neighborhood around it too," Collingswood Mayor Jim Maley said.

Jim Boothroyd, owner of the Painted Cottage, first opened his business in Collingswood the year the borough purchased the building.

"When I first opened up, there were a lot of vacant stores on Haddon Avenue," said Boothroyd, who has since expanded his hand-painted furniture business into a cafe and deli. "There's a lot more traffic in town now. If you come up here on a weekday night, it's crowded with people."

Maley said his strategy for adding to the tax base of an fully built town is smart growth through redevelopment.

"The trick is to make it grow without making it change," Maley said. "The Haddon Avenue corridor for these towns was already built up. The trick is to find out how to increase those ratables without changing the character of the town. There's no room to build 100 houses."

Instead, two transit village developments that will add hundreds of residents to the corridor are in the works -- The LumberYard condominiums and the redevelopment of the site surrounding the PATCO station.

A total of 15 firms that showed interest in turning the station's parking lot into a transit village development and the LumberYard is more than halfway through construction.

Transit villages are high-density, mixed-use developments built near mass-transit stations in hopes of attracting residents who want urban conveniences in a small-town setting and increasing ridership.

When completed, the LumberYard will have 120 units. The $54 million project, which also includes an underground parking garage, is being built in four phases and the proceeds from sales of units built during one phase is being used to finance the next phase.

Traffic issues

With so many new residents, Collingswood will need the extra parking spaces.

A 2004 traffic study conducted by Somerset-based Rodgers and Associates shows that 17,277 cars travel along Haddon Avenue on a typical day.

That's nearly as much traffic as Cuthbert Boulevard, which gets 18,530 cars between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. The White Horse Pike gets an average of 9,835 cars and Collings Avenue gets 9,321, according to the study.

All these developments along the corridor have the potential to add hundreds more vehicles to the mix, but increased traffic is a price the towns are willing to pay for a vibrant downtown.

Meanwhile, the focus is on pedestrians.

"We're already starting to see more people walking and biking on the avenue, as opposed to just driving up to the hardware store then driving back home," Teague said. "We're seeing more activity."

"One of the challenges would be to provide enough parking, but I believe the benefits far outweighs the losses," said Camden County Freeholder-Director Louis Cappelli, a lifelong Collingswood resident.

If Westmont can accomplish what Collingswood did, a small cluster of Haddonfield businesses along the Avenue between the Haddon Township border and Kings Avenue could see a noticeable increase in foot traffic.

"I think redevelopment in each of these three communities would spread to different areas," Cappelli said. "Any new opportunity for entertainment, dining, shopping or living there can benefit the entire county."

Reach Lavinia DeCastro at (856) 486-2652 or ldecastro@courierpostonline.com.

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