June 29, 2016

Merchants, Municipality Attend Workshop On Improving Signage Ordinances in Town

Last year, Princeton passed an ordinance to limit the size and regulate the placement of sandwich board signs outside businesses in town. This didn’t sit well with some proprietors, many of whom are members of the Princeton Merchants Association (PMA).

In an effort to provide recommendations for improvements to that ordinance and others that may be developed as the municipality continues to harmonize documents from the former Borough and Township, the PMA held a workshop last week at the Arts Council of Princeton. The June 21 event was led by architect Joshua Zinder of the firm JZA + D, and attended by some representatives of local businesses and members of the town’s administrative staff as well as Mayor Liz Lempert and Councilwoman Jo Butler.

“We’ve worked on a number of shops in town, and it always seems to come up that people feel the signage [regulation] is very restrictive, without a clear understanding of why,” Mr. Zinder said a few days before the workshop. “It has come up a number of times at PMA, and several people have asked me about it.”

After the sandwich board ordinance went into effect, “Many of the merchants in town were very upset about how it was being approved,” Mr. Zinder continued. “They didn’t feel there was a good dialogue where they were included in the discussion. They felt it was the municipality, and a couple of isolated people in the community, without consulting the merchants in general.”

The PMA had some talks with members of Council, and the ordinance was put on hold. Last week’s workshop was focused not only on the sandwich board signs, but on all of the different types and styles utilized by local businesses. Mr. Zinder gave a presentation that was followed by a discussion. The possibility of installing wayfinding signs, with information about how far and approximately how long a walk it would be to a destination, was proposed.

One issue that concerns merchants is the amount of time it can take to get signage approved, especially if the process involves coordination with the Historic Preservation Commission. Lighting was another focus of the discussion. Newer technology makes it easier to control light bleed from signage, which presents new and different opportunities, Mr. Zinder said.

The challenge is to attract local residents to the downtown businesses while also bringing in people from the outside. “There are a lot of empty stores in town,” said Mr. Zinder. “Unique merchants who would be attracted to Princeton are going to Route 1 and the malls, where there is free parking, and you can have any kind of sign you want. Here, there are controls. We don’t make it easy for merchants to come to Princeton.”

The PMA will take information from the workshop and elsewhere, and come back to Council with ideas for improving the ordinances. “My sense is that Council wants to make this work,” Ms. Lempert said this week. “I’m sure there is a solution in there somewhere.”

 

February 15, 2012

Princeton Merchants Association Thanks Simpson, DOT, for Constructive Meeting

To the Editor:

On behalf of The Princeton Merchants Association and the business community of Princeton, we would like to thank Commissioner James Simpson and the Department of Transportation for meeting with members of our board and those members representing Princeton University last Tuesday. The discussion regarding the Trial Experiment on Route One was both informative and constructive. We appreciate your efforts in working collaboratively with us and agreeing to move the trial period to a later date this year. The mutual understanding between the PMA and the NJDOT is recognized and appreciated.

Carly Meyer
President, Princeton Merchants Association

Team Effort Defers Jughandle Test

When the New Jersey Department of Transportation introduced plans last month to temporarily close the Route 1 jughandles at Washington Road and Harrison Street, Princeton business owners were among the most visibly upset. The idea of curtailing access to town for up to three months, starting in mid-March, was met with incredulousness and some mild hostility.

Less than two weeks later, the DOT announced that the pilot program was being postponed until August 1. Welcome news to business owners, the deferment came about two days after representatives of the Princeton Merchants Association (PMA), joined by representatives of local government, Princeton University, and the University Medical Center at Princeton, traveled to Ewing Township to meet with NJDOT Commissioner James Simpson about their concerns.

It was this united-front approach, combined with careful planning, that got the message across, say those involved in the effort. It began just after the DOT had made its presentation about the proposed jughandle closings. PMA president Carly Meyer gathered members in a meeting room at the Bank of Princeton to voice their concerns. Borough Commissioner Kevin Wilkes was also invited to that meeting, held just after the DOT’s information sessions in West Windsor and Princeton.

“We made a list of problems and I agreed to reach out to the transportation commissioner,” Mr. Wilkes said. “I had had experience with him last year in working out the Memorandum of Understanding (with Princeton University), and I knew him well enough to send him an email asking for a meeting. He immediately replied and said ‘Of course, no problem.’”

The group, which also included David Newton of Palmer Square Management; Chris Hanington of Princeton Shopping Center; Pam Hersh of University Medical Center of Princeton; Lori Rabon of The Nassau Inn; Jack Morrison of JM Group; Jan Weinberg of Weinberg Management; Barry Weisfeld of Princeton Record Exchange; and Karen Jezierny and Kristin Appelget of Princeton University, prepared a draft of points to be considered. “It was like a position paper, circulated around to make sure everybody’s concerns were outlined,” Mr. Wilkes said. “We sent it to the commissioner ahead of time, so they knew what we would be talking about. I don’t feel it’s useful to go into a meeting like that and surprise them with a bunch of gripes.”

On a conference call the day before the meeting with the commissioner, the group rehearsed who was going to say what. “We did another quick run-through the day of the meeting, when we got there,” Mr. Wilkes said. “We walked in the door at 8:30 and were probably out by 9:50, and it went very well. We didn’t know when we left what would result, but the Commissioner called within an hour to talk about actual strategies. The one he was most willing to try was a postponement. By Thursday afternoon, he made the announcement.”

Mr. Wilkes said that the group had alternately suggested closing Washington Road’s jughandle while leaving the Harrison Street one open, or possibly doing the experiment for only four weeks. The reasoning that seemed to convince the commissioner to defer the pilot program was that the opening of University Medical Center of Princeton’s new complex on Route 1, which is set for May 22, would interfere with the baseline data they were trying to collect.

Mr. Newton, who was among the most vocal at the DOT’s original information session, said he was pleased with the outcome of the meeting. “The Commissioner and his staff were very gracious with us,” he said. “They listened to our concerns, and we listened to them. They really do have an enormous problem on Route 1 between Alexander and Scudders Mill Road. We came up with the idea, and they kindly agreed to wait and see what impact there is going to be after the hospital moves. The one thing we left with is that we would like to be included in helping them work out the longer term solution to the problem.”

Ms. Hanington said the collaborative approach was the key. “The Princeton Borough and Township merchants joined together several years ago for exactly this purpose,” she wrote in an email. “By the time this Route 1 closure issue came up our association was much more than just a marketing group. We are truly a united community …. I am proud of our ‘battle victory‘ but really our work on this has just begun.’”

Ms. Rabon told the DOT Commissioner that the March-to-May closing of the jughandles would adversely affect those who have already planned weddings and other functions at the Nassau Inn during that time. “I wanted to make sure that hotels and banquet halls both downtown and along Route 1 have an opportunity to alert their guests,” she said. “They were really good about listening. We’ve got 1.3 million visitors that come downtown [a year], and it’s important to make sure we communicate with the DOT about this. They are promising to continue to work with us so we can get the messages out. This was a coming-together of PMA members with government, where you don’t always find such a willingness to listen and cooperate.”

The fact that the group spoke “in one voice, low on emotionalism and high on fact,” made the difference, Mr. Wilkes said. “We’re not saying they shouldn’t do the test at all. We’re saying that the way it is presently proposed might cause more harm than good. We want to work together with them. We have to entertain the possibility, even if we think it is remote, that the test will work out for everybody. We need to be open to empirical results.”