Collingswood Hits Big Bump In The Road

Here in South Jersey the small borough of Collingswood has been regarded as a success story, a modern-day turnaround tale.
But now the town has run into financial problems and it all seems to hinge on the local government's financing of an ambitious condo/business project that started in the middle of the economic boom and then quickly ran smack into the Big Downturn of 2008.
Our friend Kevin Riordan writes about this in his Philadelphia Inquirer column.
Here's an excerpt:

The road has been particularly tough for the LumberYard, the handsome but unfinished condo-retail complex on Haddon near Collings Avenue.
A complicated and evolving public-private financing arrangement for the $18 million project is a major reason Moody's Investors Service last week downgraded Collingswood's creditworthiness.
While the borough isn't going broke, much less bankrupt, the unusual "super downgrade" does suggest Collingswood's innovative economic development strategies could be hazardous to its fiscal health.

Click here to read the entire column.