by Jake Blumgart

CAMDEN, N.J. ? It?s been a big summer for New Jersey?s most troubled city. In June the state?s Economic Development Authority (EDA) announced that the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team will move its practice and administrative facilities to Camden?s riverfront. (It will still play games in South Philly.) The practice facility will bring 250 jobs to Camden, although 200 of them are already filled and will simply be shifted from the existing site.

The next month, the agency unveiled a plan for Holtec International to establish a factory in Camden to manufacture nuclear-power-plant equipment. The company promises to bring 395 jobs ? 160 of which are already filled and will be relocated from other factories ? for the massive new facility in the southern, industrial strip of the waterfront. The deals were accompanied by a total of $342 million in tax subsidies and credits.

?In the bigger picture, an important part of the value of these incentives is the ripple effect they have on an area, particularly a distressed one,? EDA spokeswoman Virginia Pellerin told the Courier-Post after the announcement of the Holtec deal, the third-largest single tax break in New Jersey?s history.

Peter Toso, for one, is unimpressed. He is the owner of A Little Slice of New York, a pizzeria in a largely vacant block of downtown Camden. (Other denizens of the block include a storefront law office, a fruit shop and the long-abandoned Viral?s Food Market.) Toso opened his restaurant in 1992, just as the state?s and county?s first investments in the revitalization of Camden were coming to fruition. More than two decades later, his store remains one of the only small businesses in Camden?s downtown and riverfront areas, where most of the public investment has been directed.




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