Over the past five years, the New Egypt business district and the officials who oversee it have tried numerous times to ignite a vibrant downtown. New businesses with new ideas, specialty retail outlets and a crucial recognition by Main Streets USA have given business owners and officials a lot to hope for.
But time and again, those hopes have come up against a harder reality new businesses set up only to fall like dominoes and storefronts that close are staying closed longer. Money to beautify the business district has succeeded in adding a splash of color to Main Street there are pretty flowers hanging in baskets and a few new paint jobs on the storefronts but has not helped stimulate commerce. A half dozen doors shut forever in New Egypt this year alone.
Hope, however, has sprung again. Main Street Auto Sales has opened, occupying a retail space that lay moribund for years and officials from the Neighborhood Preservation and Main Street programs have begun a concerted effort to fill six dormant Main Street retail spaces. Touting rents as low as $600 a month, members of these groups are hoping to draw viable retail establishments to the downtown business district.
While we applaud both the efforts of the township to improve itself and its tenacity for not giving up in the face of repeated disappointments, we encourage current and future merchants in New Egypt to plan wisely and consider the bigger picture.
To have a vibrant shopping district requires having a vibrant town that becomes a destination. Tourism has been considered and marketed, but little attention has been made to entertainment and recreation. A town the size of Plumsted (population 7,275, according to the U.S. Census) cannot support a retail-based business district on its own and outside residents will not travel to the center of New Jersey to find stores they can get anywhere else.
Rather than simply filling spaces and hoping for good results, officials and merchants serious about building up Downtown New Egypt would be wise to court arts and entertainment. It would also be wise to consider a theme. While many small-town business districts hope to emulate the success of New Hope, Pa., most towns do not see the essence of New Hope’s success its unity among merchants and its attention to theme.
First steps can be small. Cafés offering screenings of old movies, for example, have done wonders for towns such as Montclair and Red Bank, while Bordentown City is showing at least faint signs of progress simply by seeing its stores stay open later in the evenings.
Likewise, officials would be wise to seek and invest funds used to stimulate marketing and draw the interest of consumers who right now do not know that New Egypt is open for business. Until serious attention is given to developing and promoting New Egypt as a destination, there will be no change in the ebb and flow of disappointment and hope downtown.

