BRING ’EM IN
Trenton proposes entertainment districts to draw more arts and culture >>
TRENTON » The capital city is moving forward with a proposal to launch two entertainment districts.
One district is in the heart of downtown while the other is in the Roebling section of the city.
“We are doing the entertainment districts primarily to begin to encourage economic development through entertainment in certain areas of the city,” Diana Rogers, the city’s housing and economic director, said Wednesday in a phone interview. “It’ll be an evolving process over a period of time but the idea is to begin to encourage the development of sort of destination areas in the city for both our visitors as well as residents to participate in entertainment venues.”
Rogers said she would like to attract different types of restaurants, jazz clubs and art galleries to the districts.
According to maps provided by the city, the downtown district stretches from the Trenton Transit Station and goes down East State Street toward Route 29, encompassing South Broad and South Warren streets. The Roebling district focuses on sections of South Broad Street from Route 1 to Hudson Street.
Given the vast area of coverage, the entertainment districts also include state office buildings, Mercer County Civil and Superior courts, City Hall and state parking lots, the maps show.
Both entertainment districts are in the city’s North Ward.
City council will vote Thursday on introducing an ordinance to designate the areas.
Much of the program has yet to be worked out.
“As we begin to build out the guidelines, we’ll be looking at things like liquor licenses, other things like incentivizing, potentially storefront facades, things of that nature,” Rogers said when asked if the businesses that locate within the zones will receive any benefits.
The city’s economic director said she has not received a response yet from any business about the plan.
“This will spur some additional economic development,” Rogers said. “We think it’s really good for the city.”
The city established an entertainment
“This will spur some additional economic development. We think it’s really good for the city.” — Diana Rogers, Trenton housing and economic director
district under former Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer in 2001. The district included the hotel, which is also in the current plan, the arena and the waterfront stadium.
Rogers said the city ended the district due to liquor license issues.
“Council took out the entertainment district with the idea of recreating districts that were much more defined and with better guidelines,” Rogers said. “So we started over from the beginning.”
The director said the city has done research on other entertainment districts in the U.S. to “see how successful they’ve been.” Rogers said the city looked at places like Miami and Austin.