Jersey Shore Business Journal

May 14, 2008

Improved look for Washington Street Mall

CAPE MAY -- This getting old business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And that’s pretty much what happened to Cape May’s Washington Street Mall: the pavement cracked, paint peeled, trees lost their gracefulness, water lines aged and Father Time, not to mention Old Man Winter, the summer sun and millions of footfalls, all contributed to turn the ingénue mall of the early 1970s into an aging dowager 30-plus years later.
Now, after 200,000 brick pavers and months of construction, the mall has an exciting new look -- a facelift that has erased the ravages of time with new walkways, lighting, fountains, trees, flags, benches and planters. The process, like all beautification programs, was not without pain, a few disappointments and some aggravation – and, of course, money – lots of it.
But, the winter of discontent has been replaced with a summer of anticipation, enthusiasm and celebration as the whole community prepares to open the refurbished Washington Street Mall. The rededication and blue ribbon cutting will be Saturday, June 21 at 10 a.m. near Our Lady Star of the Sea Church at the Ocean Street end of the Mall. Activities for the official mall opening will last through the day and into the evening.
The banner weekend to welcome summer and celebrate the Mall includes the resort’s first Harbor Fest that begins, appropriately, with a Summer Solstice Bonfire Friday evening along Cape May Harbor. Festivities continue Saturday with events at the Cape May Nature Center on Delaware Avenue that will feature top chefs going head-to-head with a scallop cook off, a kayak and a canoe regatta, a street fair with food vendors and a beer tent, Coast Guard demonstrations, a blessing of the commercial fishing fleet and a wreath laying at the Fisherman’s Memorial. A water taxi will link various harbor venues and trolleys will transport people from the Washington Street Mall to the Cape May Harbor and back to enjoy all the activities from one end of town to the other.