"Things didn't look good for a long time," said Gallia, 67, now in his 50th year with some association with the college, now Rowan University - he is vice president for university relations and chief of staff. "But I have to say, with hard work and lots of cooperation, things are really looking up in Glassboro."
The latest marker is the signing of the first retail leases in the Whitney Center, part of the town-gown development called Rowan Boulevard - a project that cleared 26 acres of decrepit off-campus student housing and connected downtown with the ever-expanding university.
The Whitney Center, named for one of the families that prospered in the glass business for two centuries starting in the late 1700s, opened this fall, housing Rowan students in the honors program in the upper floors, but with space on the ground floor for up to a dozen retail shops - figuring primarily to be restaurants.
The first will be Prime, an upscale burger joint owned by Dan Clark and Ed Hackett, who own the Pub & Kitchen restaurant in Philadelphia and the Diving Horse restaurant in Avalon.
Yapple Yogurt, a health-food place with outlets in Langhorne and Wynnewood, hopes to, like Prime, open by the end of the year.
Clark also has an ownership interest in Ivy Housing, which provides off-campus residences for students.
"I've watched the area grow and expand, and watched the university grow as well, so I know it can support some better retail and restaurants," said Clark. "Just to see the town and the university working together, well, it doesn't happen everywhere."
