Keep New Hope weird, say shop owners who worry the town’s eclectic downtown will go mainstream

Last year, as Cretella was revising his Landing proposal, preservationists lost a battle some are still smarting over: When the more than 200-year-old Cintra Mansion was found to be geologically unsafe, it was bulldozed.

Meanwhile, after years of debate, studies, and other preliminary work costing $600,000, a divided borough council shot down a proposal for New Hope to build a $2 million, 152-space, multilevel parking garage that would have been handy to Route 202 and within walking distance of downtown.

“Ultimately, it would have been too expensive to build and operate,” said Maisel.

Mayor Keller is among those who said they saw parking in downtown New Hope as more a matter of perception than need.

But Alexander Fraser, producing director of the Bucks County Playhouse, said parking is the playhouse’s biggest challenge as it works to build an audience. The 459-seat theater is running at about 60% of capacity and expects to reach 80% in the next five years.

While “killing the parking garage may have been a testament to democracy,” Fraser said, it underscores what may be downtown New Hope’s biggest challenge.

“It’s a shame that in 2024 New Hope still lacks a consistent vision of what this town is going to become,” he said.Creating a new comprehensive plan

New Hope’s most recent comprehensive plan dates from 2011, and the borough council has begun a process to create a new one. Doing so will involve “a lot of public meetings and a lot of planning” over the next 18 months, Maisel said.

Although supportive of the effort, Stagnitto contends that “all of the ammunition we need to stop developments” such as the Landing already exists.

“If we lose our history, we lose our soul, and we lose the main reason people come to New Hope,” she said. “They come here because it’s unique.”

Said Love Saves owner Kauriga: “Change is inevitable, and that’s fine. But how about we find a balance, keep the quirkiness, and work the ordinary in as well?”

“People come here for the unordinary,” she said. “And I think the ordinary is starting to take the fun away in New Hope.”