"S.O.S. Save Our Store. We need your support to stay in business".
The large, hand-lettered signs in the window of Sine's 5 and 10 exuded the sadness and frustration felt by the fifth-generation owners of the ninety-four year old borough landmark. Faced with increasing competition, decreasing foot traffic, and a society that favors convenience over nostalgia, Sine's has become a sad metaphor for all of downtown Quakertown.
Since council has no viable vision for downtown, it is all but inevitable that Sine's, one of our last links to the borough's heyday, will eventually go under. Then we will shake our heads, and bemoan how we miss the hundreds of model planes, the cavalcade of photographs chronicling decades of Quakertown High School's graduating classes, and the local antiques that made the place feel like a mini-museum rather than just a business.
And we will reminisce fondly about the days-of-yore lunch counter, and it's collection of Norman Rockwell characters, who made a daily pilgrimage to enjoy simple food at simple prices. And we will lament that it was a damn shame that Sine's went the way of Woolworth's and Murphy's and Grant's and Wanamaker's and Lit Brothers, and all of those other emporia, large and small, that disappeared in General MegaStore's march to the sea.
Thanks to a council that has been comatose for decades, there is no plan for reviving the downtown, preventing more losses like Sine's. There is no plan for reversing the decline of the borough's population. There is no plan for rekindling the vibrant spirit that once made Quakertown a center for manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture. None of those remain, and nothing has taken their place. Once upon a time, councils in this town had wisdom and foresight - they built an electric plant, a sewer plant, a superb infrastructure. Not much remains of those, either.
In fact, council is actually part of the reason for Sine's impending failure. Bill Harr Sr., the owner of the 5 and 10 for the last thirty years, told The Free Press "Truly, we were up for the year until they closed that road" (Broad Street, for replacing century-old water and sewer lines). If council had not deferred needed repairs for decades, and had approved the infrastructure work years ago - when Sine's was doing well and could afford the construction inconveniences - the store would not be hit with the potentially fatal 2006 double-whammy of reduced business and the losses stemming from the repairs.
The problem here isn't just the demise of a single institution. It is the total decline of Qtown's shopping district. There isn't a single restaurant, or store, that could be considered a major attraction. The building with potentially the nicest architecture is a flop house. The denizens are scary. The plain sidewalks are like the atmosphere: old and tired. The steel streetlights are sixties-sterile. There is no personality, no fun. Little reason to go. The major draws are a beer distributor and a book store.
Despite the good intentions of Quakertown Alive!, there is scant optimism for the future. The anticipated crosswalks and streetlights are nice, but a pig wearing makeup is still a pig, no matter how many parades he is in. We need an extreme makeover. Now. A reason for people to say, "Let's go to Quakertown!" But we don't have to reinvent the wheel...
Other towns, ones with vision, have been reborn as destinations. Think New Hope, Lambertville, Doylestown, Yardley, Flemington, Newtown, Lahaska. Fun places, filled with great spots to eat, art galleries, craft shops, boutiques, B&B's, and outlets. Upscale loft apartments. And, best of all, tourists spending lots of dollars. Tourists that would absolutely fall in love with a unique treasure like Sine's. So how do we attract these attractions to our ailing corner of the world?
By becoming business-friendly. Overly friendly. Make offers they can't refuse. No taxes for five years. Rent subsidies. Low-rate utilities. Tons of free advertising. Everything a business could want. A chance to get in on the ground floor of the next-great-place-to-be. Sure, we will have some costs. But it is a vitally-needed investment in the future of Quakertown, a future that today seems bleak at best. Those businesses will eventually pay taxes, keeping residential rates down. And there isn't much risk. No significant dollars would be spent unless the new establishments are in place. If they don't come, there wouldn't be many tax breaks. No gain, no pain.
Or explore making downtown an "Enterprise Zone", bringing federal and state aid. Philadelphia has been successfully with ideas like this. Incentives for Cigna, Liberty Place, the riverfront piers, and hundreds of residential and commercial developments. Officials are currently considering changing the business tax formula to dissuade two of the last major manufacturers, including Tasty Baking, from leaving. Yeah, it might temporarily reduce city income, but the alternative is worse.
Next, let's think even bigger. Older urban areas are often limited by lack of reusable land downtown. But Quakertown has several excellent locations available, like the railroad station and freight yards along Front Street. The sprawling public works and water company yards at Third and Erie, now eyesores with little value, could be developed into a quaint outlet village, or even some larger stores. Move the trucks and rock salt to the sewer plant, and let a professional developer try to breathe new life into a dead location.
This is all easy for me to say, you say. Paint the broad strokes, and let others struggle with the details. But at least it is an idea, which is one more than we have heard from the seven people elected to have those ideas. Sine's is just a symptom of the Dreaded Downtown Disease, which has infected Quakertown and is spreading rapidly. S.O.S. Unless someone acts, it could be fatal.