Willingboro Township, New Jersey

7 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 “That’s been an unmet need for us,” Dr. Worthy admits. “We’d love to see something like a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods option. I know that the Deputy Mayor has been in conversations with a retailer and continues to have to dialogues about what it would take to bring those types of businesses to Willingboro. We’d also like to be able to expand recreation in Willingboro. We used to have two movie theatres, and now we don’t have any! Ultimately, we’re looking to create a lot more places and venues for people to come to and spend family time together.” Willingboro’s vacant properties, including some waterfront and lakefront properties in the interior of the town, are currently being eyed for future commercial spaces, marinas, and water sports that would help make the town a destination of choice for locals and tourists, 365 days a year. “Mrs. Whitfield and I grew up here in Willingboro,” shares Mayor Kaya McIntosh. “There used to be a lot of activity. The community was thriving and, at that point, there was a lot of interaction between people, with five grocery stores, two cinemas, and shopping malls. Over the years that’s diminished to where we don’t have that cross-interaction anymore, but we’re looking to reverse that trend. We want to make the community more lively. As a team, as a council, we’re interested in bringing in entertainment and ideas.” “Some developers would love to turn our town into a warehouse town, but there’s so much more we could use as a community,” Dr. Worthy professes. “This council and this administration are really committed to listening to what the public wants. Mr. Harris also does a phenomenal job of helping us get to “yes”, because some stuff is just hard to do. But I think the residents appreciate the fact that we’re making the efforts to respond to the things that they’re interested in. Most importantly, we’re staying connected with the entities around us – our municipal utilities authority, our school district, our legislators at every level of government – making sure that things stay tied together. To make sure that Willingboro isn’t left out of conversations and that our priorities are being addressed.”