WEST WINDSOR: Shopping center gets go-ahead for bigger sign

By Allison Musante, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — The owners of smaller stores in the Southfield Retail Center are hoping that a new, larger sign will attract new businesses.
   The township approved a permit last week for property owner Martin Heller, of the Heller Group, to replace the existing 48-square-foot sign with a 165-square-foot sign that will list all 20 tenants of the center. The original sign, built with the center in 1996, only listed a select few tenants, according to Sam Surtees, the township Division of Land Use manager.
   ”He has the green light to go ahead,” he said. The application was delayed by about a year for missing materials or other deficiencies.
   ”When (the application) was completed, we reviewed it relatively quickly,” he said. “We know the center needs the visibility.”
   The shopping center will also be renamed to the “McCaffrey’s Market,” Mr. Surtees said.
   Approval has come at the pinnacle of frustration for some business owners. At the Township Council’s March 14 meeting, Franc Gambatese, owner of Grover’s Mill Coffee House, expressed concern about the delay, after seeing several businesses leave in the past year.
   ”It seems like every month someone is going out of business here,” he said. “Let’s help the businesses that are already here,” he added, referring to the township’s preoccupation with the InterCap transit village and Windsor Plaza (former Acme center).
   When the application went before the planning board last April, Mr. Heller and his consultants argued the sign was necessary because the smaller storefronts’ signs weren’t visible from Route 571 or Southfield Road, where drivers are passing by at about 50 miles per hour. The stores are set back from the road and many are blocked by landscaping.
   ”Those trees have had like 17 or 18 years of growth,” Mr. Surtees said. “It makes it very hard to see to the names on the stores.”
   At the April meeting, Mario Urive, owner of Liberty Medical, said he was forced to let go two employees. He attributed a 29 percent drop in business largely to the hard-to-read sign.
   A call to Mr. Heller was not returned by press time.