Route 33 spans the width of Hamilton Township, almost six miles of highway connecting Trenton in the west and Robbinsville in the east. At least according to one business group, it’s a stretch of road that’s vital to Hamilton’s future. And that group has set out to ensure that future is a good one.
The Biz 33 Group, a networking and development organization that is a subset of the Hamilton Partnership, formed two years ago with the goal of promoting businesses on Route 33, improving the appearance of the businesses and the highway, influencing people to shop locally and also to “drive business and appeal to shoppers.”
Biz 33 Group chair Jeannine Cimino said that much can be done to improve Route 33, and the group has tried to jumpstart that improvement effort by attempting to get consumers excited about shopping locally.
The group kicked off a two-month shop local initiative on Sept. 24 with a sidewalk sale along Route 33. Biz 33 advertised the event and invited local businesses and organizations on Route 33 to participate by furnishing them with signs and balloons to attract customers, and also by distributing flyers with the participating businesses’ names during Hamilton’s Septemberfest.
The goal of September’s sidewalk sale was to encourage local shopping, but the promotion came with an added incentive. Consumers that participated in the sale were able to pick up an entry form, which detailed that if the consumer shopped at 10 different businesses in the local area that they would be entered into a drawing for an iPad 2 sponsored by First Choice Bank. The consumer merely had to present copies of 10 receipts with the entry form to be entered into the drawing.
Biz 33 Group received roughly 160 entries for the promotion, Cimino said.
“This was with few ads and no huge budgets either,” Cimino said.
One of those 160 entries was from Marilyn Silverman of Word Center Processing, a business on Route 33 that has been around since 1989. She believes that 33 is one of the most “ambitious parts of Hamilton.”
“I thought it was a great idea,” Silverman said of the initiative, “and we encouraged our customers to participate as well.”
Hamilton Partnership chair Greg Blair believes that the giveaway promotion was very successful for both the businesses on Route 33 and for the local consumer.
“It was very well received,” he said. “It was a great program that really got people’s attention.”
The deadline to submit receipts was on Nov. 30.
Jumping off of Biz 33’s success, Cimino said there are at least two other business groups planned to start in the future. Blair said that those could be in the Hamilton Avenue-Liberty Street area and on Route 130. Blair and the Hamilton Partnership, a public-private partnership, sponsored the idea to have these business groups as they popped up around town.
The Partnership describes itself as a group that affords input in a productive manner in Hamilton’s government, through meetings with Mayor John Bencivengo and his Chief of Staff/Economic Development Director Michael Angarone. Monthly meetings are held where concerns of the business community are addressed with a more creative response and quicker resolution.
Local business owner Connie Dalton—who ran for mayor this past November—said she has always been passionate about business groups, and being located in Mercerville, she’s taken a special shine to Biz 33.
Dalton, who joined the group when it started, believes that the group needs to get more attention lavished upon it to target “generational” and other businesses on Route 33.
“If you look around at other townships, they have business development and neat things around,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be as much to do on 33, and it’s kind of a mishmash.”
She believes that the Biz 33 Group needs to “fight to get something concrete going.”
“We need something to tie the community together,” Dalton said, “and that means something to people.”
But Blair said that the existence of groups like Biz 33 already has begun to bring people in Hamilton together.
“Groups like this allow for owners of a variety of businesses to express a better business environment,” he said.
Blair also mentioned the importance of keeping mom and pop stores like some of those located on Route 33 up and running.
Currently, the Biz 33 Group has 28 paid members that meet at 8 a.m. at the Golden Dawn diner on Whitehorse-Mercerville Road in Hamilton on the third Wednesday of every month. Membership fees are $100 a year.
Cimino believes that the future for the Biz 33 Group is bright.
“We want to continue to grow our group,” she said. “We’d like to find more businesses to participate in the future.”
Blair adds that the work that the Biz 33 Group has accomplished “adds a connection between local businesses and local groups to save money, and also creates as direct line to get projects started.”
Hamilton Partnership and Blair specifically hope to see Biz 33 take advantage of its aspect of utilizing a local connection in a specific area.
A social event is planned in January where she and others in the group will invite local business owners out for cocktails and use the occasion as a networking opportunity. She and the Biz 33 Group also plan on participating in the Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Hamilton Business expo to further the group’s purpose.
For more information on the Biz 33 Group, go online to facebook.com/pages/Biz-33-Group/273852165960072.
