Toy company ignores the storyline

We are constantly bombarded with the argument that New Jersey has created an awful business climate that drives companies elsewhere — but then we get news, from NJBIZ.com, that the educational toy company Melissa & Doug, is relocating to South Brunswick from Connecticut.

Melissa & Doug was “looking for a location that was best suited to cover everywhere from Florida to Maine,” said NAI James E. Hanson Senior Vice President Kenneth Lundberg, who along with Joel Hausman, of Fairfield, Conn.-based Colonial Realty, represented the company in the deal. “New Jersey is what appeared on their radar screen.”

Central New Jersey is more centrally located for distribution than Connecticut, being roughly equidistant to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and Washington, D.C., he said. “In a single truck-driving day, by locating in central New Jersey, you probably double the number of population you can reach in one day” compared to Connecticut, Lundberg said.

Apparently, taxes and environmental regulations — the two most-frequently cited reasons that the business community and its apologists offer — are not the only factors businesses consider.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet