Current Bordentown
FEBRUARY 2020 FREE
King for a day
B O R D E N TO W N CU R R E N T. CO M
Clean clothes, warm hearts Bordentown Laundry Project helps locals at laundromats By LOis LeViNe
Once a month, a group of Bordentown residents get sudsy. The first Wednesday of each month, participants in the Bordentown Laundry Project gather to donate time, money, detergent and other laundryrelated products to their neighbors. The next laundry night is set for Feb. 5. Reverend J. Matthew Tucker has been Rector at Christ Church of Bordentown for almost 12 years. He is a man with a diverse background— he has worked in software and
healthcare before entering the Virginia Theological Seminary in 2005. There he served as Priest-inCharge and was made rector in 2011. In Bordentown, Tucker is also an active firefighter and chaplain of the fire and police departments, sits on the Bordentown City Environmental Commission and serves Burlington County as the Chaplain of the Burlington County Emergency Services, the Burlington Country Fire Chief Association and the 200 Club of Burlington County, to name just a few of the organizations he is involved in. Clearly, Tucker is no stranger to doing good for his community, so when he first heard about the Laundry Project, he was intrigued—and decided to investigate further. “There are nationwide programs that put on free laundry
nights for those people who would be in need of such a thing,” he said. “Having heard about it, and heard about churches around the diocese doing nights like this, we decided to do something like it in Bordentown.” Tucker started his new endeavor back in June 2018. His first step was to approach a laundromat—he went to Rivertown Laundromat, owned by Paul Ciarrocca—as well as the Rotary Club of Bordentown “to see if we can all come together to make it happen.” Everyone was eager to get involved. The next step was social media. As Tucker said, “We put it on Facebook, Instagram, our parish weekly email, soliciting for quarters, laundry detergent, fabric softeners, all that we would need for the evenings.” Tucker and his team also See LAUNDRY, Page 9
Controversial warehouse signs tenant Modell’s to lease half of Georgetown Road facility
Elijah Davis was named Mr. Bordentown at the annual pageant, held Jan. 15 at Bordentown Regional High School. For more photos, turn to Page 10. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
A controversial Bordentown warehouse has its first tenant. Modell’s is set to lease the new Matrix Development Group facility at the intersection of Georgetown Road and Old York Road. The sporting goods company will house its logistics and distributions operations at the site, transferring from its previous headquarters based in New York. Matrix first approached Bordentown Township about building a warehouse on the plot in 2016. The plan was approved the following year, and construction at the site is ongoing. The township said in a press
release that Modell’s will lease approximately 312,000 square feet of space, about 55 percent of the total distribution center. The other tenant or tenants have not yet been named. Residents, especially those at the nearby Clifton Mill housing development, were wary from the star, however. Many preferred the original tract of farmland and worried that construction noise, truck traffic, fumes and emissions would impact their quality of life. The portion of the property that was not designated as proposed farmland, though, had been zoned for development since at least the early 1990s. Bordentown Township Mayor Stephen Benowitz addressed those traffic concerns, saying that Modell’s confirmed that their tractor trailers
will travel down Old York Road rather than Georgetown Road to enter and exit the facility. “We are very pleased that Modell’s is coming to the township and that they are committed to being good neighbors,” Benowtiz said. “They recognized the potential traffic issues, and quickly and voluntarily offered to mandate all their tractor trailers stay off Georgetown Road.” Benowitz said he believes the agreement is a positive outcome for the residents living on Georgetown Road and for the communities that are serviced by the road. “The township will continue to work with the developer and all current and future tenants to ensure these safety measures are enforced,” he said. “We are See WAREHOUSE, Page 12
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