Borgs embrace a downtown they abandoned in 2009

Plans for apartments on North Jersey Media Group's River Street property in Hackensack, once home to The Record, will likely involve an elaborate marketing campaign to attract tenants to a notorious flood zone with a view of a cement plant and, beyond that, the elevated roadway of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The major story in today's Sunday edition ignores why there are so many failed businesses in Englewood, above. The Record cites the small city as one of the Bergen towns that "believe ... adding rental apartments in their downtowns is the key to revitalizing their Main Streets." Rental  and condo buildings on Palisade Avenue in Englewood have done no such thing. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the years after North Jersey Media Group pulled out of Hackensack in 2009, The Record carefully avoided reporting the impact on the city's already struggling downtown only two blocks from the old newsroom.

Today, readers will find more reporting on Hackensack and other Bergen downtowns than they've seen in years, but Teaneck's depressed Cedar Lane isn't covered (A-1).

The story is by Staff Writer Joan Verdon, the longtime retail reporter who has spent more than a decade promoting mall retailers and highway businesses.

Her premise is that officials in Hackensack and other downtowns believe adding rental apartments will translate into more shoppers and restaurant patrons, revitalizing their Main Streets.

That strategy has already failed in Englewood, where hundreds of units downtown and along Route 4 haven't completely revitalized Palisade Avenue, Engle and other downtown streets.

One issue Verdon doesn't address is high downtown rents, which a pharmacist cites as one reason he is closing his Ridgewood business after 32 years (L-2).

In 2009, Publisher Stephen A. Borg completed a major downsizing and the pullout of The Record from Hackensack, where the paper had prospered for more than 110 years.

The Borg family was responsible for the first wave of apartments in Hackensack when they sold a Prospect Avenue mansion to a high-rise developer.

The Whitehall at 280 Prospect Ave. was completed in 1960.