Town By Town: Old-world feel, new comforts

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities.

It isn't as well known as Haddonfield or as hip as Collingswood, but these days Haddon Township is much more than a pass-through from one borough to the other.

This Camden County community has a life of its own - from the businesspeople, retirees, and friends who start the day with breakfast at the Westmont Diner at Haddon and Maple Avenues to the long line for sticky buns Sunday mornings at the venerable McMillan's Bakery at Haddon Avenue and Cuthbert Boulevard.

And everyplace in between: Severino's, Westmont Ace Hardware, Cook's Liquor, the Keg & Kitchen, the Pour House, Westmont Party, the Wednesday farmers' market, and even the Westmont Fire Company's seasonal Saturday hoagie fund-raisers in mid-Haddon Avenue by the firehouse.

Interested in model trains? Spend a fascinating 20 minutes at Sattler's Train Shop as co-owner Bruce Kohler talks Santa Fe HO model passenger cars with an enthusiastic customer who's been collecting since he was a boy.

"It is lively," says Kate Burns, director of the Business Improvement District, a township position created when the current administration took office.

Since then, restaurants and other businesses have flocked to Haddon Avenue in Westmont, the township's "downtown," joining those like Ace Hardware and McMillan's that have been owned by generations of the same families, Burns says.

"Over the last 10 years, many good restaurants have opened on Haddon Avenue," says John Kennedy, an agent with Coldwell Banker Preferred in Haddonfield and a lifelong township resident.

Haddon Township is also a "wet" town, unlike Collingswood, Haddonfield, and Haddon Heights.

"What our downtown has makes us unique," says Burns. "People need services - gas, hardware store, restaurants, paint, and other things our businesses provide."

What Haddon Township, observing its 150th anniversary this year, doesn't have much of are available properties, Kennedy says.

"There are 80 houses for sale, which is a bit on the low side," he says.

Of the houses for sale, he says, the average price is $225,000, taking in a variety of mostly older houses, rowhouses, Victorians, twins, and a bumper crop of bungalows - some original, some added to.

Prices vary by neighborhood, with the most expensive houses along the Cooper River and Camden County Park, Kennedy says.

Neighborhoods range "from blue-collar to doctors and lawyers - a good mix," he says.

"Something for $500,000 is on the high side," he adds, "and you won't find anything for $1 million."

Prices fell about 20 percent in the real estate downturn and haven't fully recovered, but they have gained 15 of those percentage points back, he says.

Property taxes are high, "along the lines of all of Camden County" except Haddonfield, which has the highest, Kennedy says.

As with a lot of small towns, people who grow up in Haddon Township tend to stay put, or, if they leave, come back.

"People who went to high school here will want to move back, but their spouses don't usually understand why until they've lived here for a while," says William Getzinger 3d, the third generation of his family that has owned and operated Westmont Ace Hardware. He grew up here and lives in town.

"Thirty years and two additions to our home later, we are still living here," says Jim McAleer, owner of Solar Electric New Jersey, who spent many years in the home-building industry in the region.

"We intended to live here for three or four years, and then build a new home. We ended up having kids, and when I told my wife it was time to start designing our new home, she asked if we could stay here and just add on," says McAleer, whose son just bought a house in Haddon Township.

Getzinger says the secret to Westmont Ace Hardware's longevity is convenience for customers - especially on-site parking - and an "outstanding location on family-owned real estate," both of which help it hold its own with the home centers and others.

"Haddon Township always has been a great place," he says, and though its appearance may have changed, "the feel hasn't."

More changes are underway, or coming soon.

Eighty-two one- and two-bedroom luxury rental apartments are under construction in four three-story buildings on West Albertson Avenue. Called Albertson Village, the project, developed by the Walters Group, is on the Russell Cast Stone factory site near the PATCO High-Speed Line tracks a few blocks from Westmont Station.

The long-vacant Westmont Theater will be renovated as a Planet Fitness - a plan approved Thursday - which Burns says will bring "more people into Westmont in a more controlled manner" than for a couple performances, creating, with Albertson Village, more shoppers.

The redevelopment of the Dy-Dee Service diaper-laundry site as a "town center" on Haddon Avenue remains on the drawing board.

The original plan was for mixed use - first-floor retail and condos - but the real estate downturn put the project on the back burner, as it did with projects in many other towns.

Resurgent Westmont is filled with events nearly year-round: a St. Patrick's pub crawl, a luau, summer movie nights, and, of course, Santa arriving by fire truck.

Finding Haddon Township at Christmas is easy, Burns says:.

"We're the ones with the red lights on our trees."

Town by Town moves to Real Estate, Section J, beginning May 17. Next week's featured community: Franconia, Montgomery County. EndText

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