FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Alex Torpey, Business Administrator,
City of Lambertville Continuing to Hold Virtual Roundtable Discussions as part of planning for potential re-openings
May 14th 2020
Lambertville, NJ – City of Lambertville officials are holding additional virtual business roundtables on May 14th and May 16th as part of a strategic plan to prepare for the potential reopening of businesses over the spring and summer. Although local stakeholders have been working together on all of the challenges of the last few months, over the last few weeks attention has turned to what proactively should be done to prepare for potential re-openings and the influx of summer tourism to Lambertville.
City officials have begun working alongside local businesses and other stakeholders to ensure that all possible details are thought through and adequate preparations are made. The goal is to allow the downtown to be the incredible destination it usually is - moving forward in a way that helps bring some business back to the downtown, while keeping visitors, business owners, and the entire community safe. The first virtual business roundtable was hosted by Lambertville on May 9th, and feedback from these have already begun to be integrated into the City’s plans.
Part of the City’s plans are trial runs to include expanding sidewalk space to allow pedestrians to circulate more safely along Bridge Street and Kline’s Court over the upcoming weekend. Based on feedback received during a roundtable, the City will also designate some free spaces for curbside pickup. The City has also created and displayed signage in key areas which has clear, precautionary measures, and has been working closely with local law enforcement on police oversight, as well as outside agencies for additional law enforcement support. Additionally, the City is creating and sharing a crowd-sourced purchasing guide that helps identify where businesses have successfully purchased COVID related safety items, such as cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, and face masks so they can share that with each other.
More medium and longer term considerations include discussing regulating the direction of pedestrian traffic flow, equipping businesses with masks to give/sell to visitors, creating dedicated safe outdoor dining spaces, and helping businesses take precautionary measures in their stores, such as installing touchless bathroom upgrades, and other strategies. Furthermore, based on feedback from a roundtable, the City will also discuss provisions for public restrooms.
The City created signage that was posted around town and distributed to essential businesses in April, and will provide additional signs to the non-essential businesses on May 15th so they are more prepared for eased restrictions starting Monday, May 18th. The City also created signage identifying some Do’s and Don’ts regarding face masks and reminding everyone to be compassionate towards others during these challenging times. 
On May 14th, the City is communicating to all businesses and community members the list of precautionary plans being put in place for the upcoming weekend. Feedback will be taken from businesses and residents after the weekend, and used to help further tweak the City’s responses so that the ultimate goals of allowing safe use of the downtown can be achieved this summer, if appropriate and guided to do so by the State.
The City is working with the Borough of New Hope, Chambers of Commerce, Hunterdon County and additional local stakeholders such as the State Park Service, in all of these plans, helping to facilitate collaboration between all relevant stakeholders.
The City requests that interested parties RSVP for the upcoming roundtables at https://www.lambertvillenj.org/economicdevelopment
All City updates, which are posted every Monday and Thursday at 4:30 pm, can be found at https://www.lambertvillenj.org/covid
