Business View Civil and Municipal | February 2021

82 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL FEBRUARY 2021 find meaningful high-tech and well-paying year- round jobs here and that capacity is growing every day.” A second initiative to bolster business is the County Commons, a 185,000-square-foot complex located in Rio Grande that formerly housed a Kmart. The county initially had planned to lease space in the complex for its social services offices, but was able to purchase it outright after the owner of the property went bankrupt. They completely revamped the space, turning it from a standard plaza with storefronts at the front and trash and dumpsters at the back to a full circle plaza that utilizes space on all sides. “We made a number of upgrades to the south side of the building so that it didn’t appear to be the back of a building,” said Jeff Lindsay, Cape May County attorney. “With that we implemented a sidewalk, lighting, all the standard things that you would put there, but we also put in a little patio park area off the back of one of the units. We also turned a former alleyway into a courtyard accessible from three different units. It really made it more attractive for potential tenants to come in and lease the space.” The complex formerly included a movie theater, so they found a local developer with experience in the movie theater business to take over that space. Lindsay reports, “He took an entire wing of the complex – approximately 80,000 square feet – and he is going to operate a movie theater, a bowling alley, a gaming area, a bar, and a restaurant in that area.” Now, the county is leasing space to a variety of different businesses and organizations, including a Veterans’ clinic run by the federal government, a tractor supply store, and New Jersey’s Department of Labor services and programs. “It’s really been a concerted effort once we bought it to make it a mixed-use property,” Lindsay explains. “It was something that we identified as a good concept for the property. That was really