This is the second installment of our five-part series exploring the plans for Lower Bucks County this year. //
For Bristol Borough, 2016 will be a year of continuing existing projects and welcoming new faces.
Two of those faces will be on the police force, after Police Chief Arnold Porter and Detective Randy Morris retire on Feb. 19 and Jan. 18, respectively. Porter has been with Bristol for more than 30 years, and Morris for 27. According to Mayor Patrick Sabatini, the borough is searching for a replacement for Porter, who will then collaborate in bringing on someone new in Morris’ place.
“We wish them the best of luck,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bristol continues to grow thanks in large part to the recent revitalization surrounding Mill Street. Much of what’s planned for 2016 has roots in projects that began last year, like the opening of the Bristol Borough Centre for the Arts, and the construction groundbreaking on the new Mill Street Wharf that, when completed, will offer new townhomes and condos, and a new restaurant, right near the river.
The effects of efforts like these are slowly and steadily becoming evident, said Sabatini, as more people come to visit and even stay in the borough.
“We’re seeing a lot of people moving in,” he noted. “There are still a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs, but it’s indicating that things are moving up in the borough.”
This year, Sabatini would like to see more of those revitalization efforts extend past just the Mill Street area by improving arterial roads like Beaver and Bath streets, and Old Route 13. “In order to get to Mill Street, you have to go through those arteries,” he explained.
It’s an idea that’s on the radar of the Raising the Bar Committee, the group that spearheads the revitalization efforts in town. However, it’s not first on the list.
“Our goal for 2016 is to expand upon on what we’re already doing,” explained Bill Pezza, president of the Raising the Bar Committee. That means continuing to make the new Centre for the Arts successful, and engaging in economic promotion to attract more businesses to town.
Those new plans include a new Restaurant Week, tentatively planned for mid- to late February. There’s already excitement about it, said Pezza, even as the restaurateurs hash out the details.
“Our goal is to put various leaders in a room and let them do their thing,” he said. “The owners are very enthusiastic. But we don’t run restaurants, they do. So they’ll make the decision as to what it will look like.”
Pezza also hopes this will be the year the Riverfront Docks are built, a proposed 25 units near Mill and Radcliffe streets where day boaters on the Delaware River could dock and visit the borough. For now, approval is tied up with state funding, which is frozen due to Pennsylvania’s budget impasse.
Nevertheless, said Pezza, the docks “would be huge to help out our effort to market the town. It would facilitate making Bristol another destination.”
As for developing areas surrounding Mill Street, Pezza has already identified Farragut and Beaver streets as candidates for similar efforts in the near future. But, there isn’t enough existing business and excitement in those areas yet to pursue any plans — something he hopes will change in the near future.
“Right now, you go where the dollars take you and where the interest lies,” Pezza explained. “At this point, they’re not as conducive to the kind of concentrated retail that Mill Street has.”
He also pointed to other efforts by the Raising the Bar Committee, like the town-wide cleanups throughout the year and the Delaware Canal and Food Truck Festival at the Bristol Lagoon, which concentrated on the Borough as a whole, not just Mill Street.
“There are lot of things that started to come together in 2015 and we are enthused that they will continue to in 2016.”
