The former Knights of Columbus building on the corner of Elm and Broad streets in Palmyra is being renovated to accommodate offices.
Palmyra is on the move forward to the delight of Mayor Gina Ragomo Tait and Township Administrator John Gural Jr., especially after the borough was featured in a recent edition of “Business View Magazine” as one of the best towns to live in with fewer than 10,000 residents.
“I think this shows everybody we care about doing the best we can for the town and we’re thinking outside of the box,” Tait said.
“This is special,” added Gural, who speaks of the many construction projects going on in town, including the renovation of the former Knights of Columbus building at Elm and Broad streets into offices by the new owner, SEA BOX Inc. of Cinnaminson. “The building was in need of substantial improvement, and we recognized that there was an opportunity there.”
The site was declared in need of redevelopment.
“We prepared a plan, then marketed that to folks that we thought would be interested in developing that property,” Gural explained.
SEA BOX, which manufactures shipping and storage containers, met with borough officials and decided to purchase the property. As part of its agreement, the company is creating a 10-foot-wide-by-5-foot-high Welcome to Palmyra sign, complete with lighting to welcome motorists coming into town via Broad Street.
“That’s the first building in Palmyra when you enter from the north,” noted Gural, is in his 13th year as borough administrator, of the former Knights of Columbus building. “It’s going to anchor our business district and will certainly help attract new development to our downtown area.”
Tait and Gural are also happy about the continuing 186-acre Route 73 South Development Area project; phase 1 was completed in 2022 with construction of the Tac-Pal Logistics Center warehouse. Phase 2 is expected to be completed in the spring and includes another Tac-Pal building, 102 units of affordable housing and 34 acres of open space.
“We’re very conservative in our budgeting techniques,” the borough administrator noted. “But we’re very aggressive as far as the improvement and redevelopment projects that we take on, which is kind of the heart of what drives economic development in Palmyra.”
Tait – who began her second four-year term in January and has served as a councilwoman – said the town also has a new turf soccer field as part of the Route 73 agreement, and with a $250,000 federal grant, the tennis and basketball courts are currently being repaved and re-lined and the Kiddie Park is getting renovated.
The mayor said she is also happy with the free summer meal program she started in June that provided nutritious food free to residents, especially to families of students eligible for free and reduced student lunches.
“We’re going to do it again next year,” Tait promised. “I am a social worker at heart. With 7,000 people, nobody should go hungry in Palmyra.”
She also hopes the future will include a way for the borough to help grandparents raising their grandchildren.
Another successful borough program is the community garden at the Palmyra Cove Nature Center, created through a partnership with the Burlington County Bridge Commission. It is a sustainable vegetable garden free to all residents, Tait said, adding that officials plan to create another community garden with eight new beds behind borough hall.
One of the keys to Palmyra’s “great place to live, learn and grow” rating is the improvement in the town’s finances.
“We surrounded ourselves with the best people,” observed Gural, citing the excellent work done by CFO Donna Condo, Tax Collector Tanyika Johns and Municipal Clerk Rita Jackson. “Tanyika and Donna worked in other municipalities and were highly recommended. Rita started the Neighborhood Preservation Program 20 years ago that helps people rehab houses and landscaping.
“We now have a very healthy and substantial fund balance, or surplus, especially for a community of our size,” Gural observed. “Before we adopted the 2024 budget of $11 million, we had more than $5.8 million in available surplus, which gives any municipality the ability to do a number of projects that they would not normally be able to do.”
Those projects include the redevelopment of unused or underused realty, infrastructure maintenance and improvements, funding for housing, recreation and public amenities and investments in processes that save money and improve services for the towns businesses and citizens.
