2 min read October 2022 — Development, a military mega-base and attracting tech companies are the key ingredients that Pemberton Township Mayor David Patriarca believes will maintain the Township’s economy moving forward. “We still offer the incentives that make it palatable for someone to come here,” he told Invest:.
What key highlights and milestones did the township achieve over the past year?
We have been very actively pursuing our development opportunities, such as along the 206 Corridor, the state highway that runs on the northwest boundaries of our township. The primary development on that corridor is, of course, the latest cash cow, which is warehouses. If we are to capitalize on that market, we need to do so with the least amount of impact to our community. To that end, we targeted two specific areas, one off of a county highway on the last property in the township furthest away from our community and the other is the 206 Corridor. We developed a 500,000-square-foot warehouse on South Pemberton Road, which is the county roadway. On the state highway, we have approximately 3.5-million-plus square feet worth of warehouses projected for that area. Our neighboring community, East Hampton Township, is in the process of doing the same on their side of the highway. We are looking at it as an opportunity to capture some of this revenue without severely impacting our community with traffic flow and the unsightliness of some of the warehouses. We are looking to capture the revenue and the job creation that these types of facilities provide and bring that to the community for the future stability of our tax rates.
We also have some residential projects that are in the queue, including a 600-plus unit, age restricted residential community that is working its way through the approval process. Another redevelopment plan is on the former Burlington County College site. The college left the town, joined forces with Rowan University and they are now located in Mount Laurel. The redevelopment project is for residential purposes. One of the biggest challenges with commercial retail development has always been that the developers have looked at us as not having enough rooftops. We are just not large enough to serve their interests. While our population is over 30,000 residents, it is just not enough for developers, so we have been focusing on trying to not only bring in revenue and jobs but also bringing in residential housing stock to assist in that area. We have well over $1 million in Downtown properties that the town owns and we are trying to entice investors to come in, purchase these properties from us and redevelop them in line with the town’s vision.
Which industries are you looking to consolidate or bring into Pemberton?
We would certainly like to see more high-tech services coming into the town. We are also adjacent to Joint Base, one of only three military mega-bases in the country. Every unit in the military is represented at Joint Base. We are the largest community adjacent to the base so there is significant opportunity for individuals who contract on the base to be close to their work by moving into our town and avoid the longer drive from somewhere else. We encourage contractors to take up space here that will ultimately service the neighboring base. We also have the Deborah Heart and Lung Center, a not-for-profit hospital here in the community. It is a world-renowned healthcare facility that is venturing into other areas of service, bringing different types of medical services to the community to complement what they do. We look to provide services, whether in the medical or biology fields, that are needed in the immediate area.
What are the Township’s strategies to attract businesses and people?
We still offer the incentives that make it palatable for someone to come here. We have an Urban Enterprise Zone, one of New Jersey’s programs to offer reduced taxes in a business district, as well as an assigned Opportunity Zone. We offer these types of options, along with a tax incentives program in the town’s ordinance, which allows a business to either do improvements or build entirely and get a five-year tax deferment. It offers the opportunity to gradually build up to the profit margins that you are looking for to sustain your business. We recognize that as a need, given the challenges that there are today, especially when it comes to the labor shortages. We will continue to market Pemberton as the place to invest in. We still see folks out there putting up new mom and pop shops and we want them to choose Pemberton.
What is the fiscal outlook for Pemberton over the next two or three years?
We are always working to stabilize taxes. We have promoted all along that we will not reduce taxes. Folks always ask for services from their government and services come at a cost. I tell my residents all the time that we will give them anything they want but they have to be willing to pay for it because I have to build that revenue into the budget, to come up with that revenue somewhere, because most of our revenue comes from the residential tax base. We are trying to diversify that base by bringing in some commercial and industrial tax base. We are trying to work on the economic side of the equation to bring more revenue in so that we are not dipping into the resident taxpayers’ pockets.
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