Main St. Redevelopment

[Editor]

Changes urged for Hackensack downtown
Thursday, October 21, 2010
BY MONSY ALVARADO
The Record
STAFF WRITER

HACKENSACK – The city's special improvement district wants officials to change zoning regulations along Main Street that will allow for the construction of taller buildings with residential units, outdoor dining and more parking.

The aim, property owners say, is to increase the number of people who live, work, eat and shop on Main Street and return the retail corridor to its earlier vibrancy.


Jerome Lombardo, head of the Main Street Business Alliance, wants to make it easier to develop the city's downtown.

"We are the county seat, we have people coming here every day; they come in, they do their business and they leave," said Jerome Lombardo, chairman of the Main Street Business Alliance, the group pushing for the changes. "They never go to the downtown; there is nothing here for them to stay for so we have to create that."

The Main Street Business Alliance has been floating its ideas to business owners and city residents for months at information sessions. Tonight it will explain its proposal to the City Council and ask that it designate Main Street, between the Sears building and the Bergen County Courthouse, an "overlay district."

"We want to put zoning in place that will make that area more easily developable," said Lombardo, a real estate manager.

Most of Main Street, a one-way corridor that stretches about 1.2 miles, is zoned for business use. It has a limited number of residential units. Declaring it an "overlay district" will not change the zone designation but will permit new site and building design regulations to be established that would help streamline the approval process for future redevelopment.

City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono, who sits on the alliance's board, said he wanted the plan to be presented to the council before commenting.

Similar designations have also been put in place in several New Jersey communities to improve their business districts, said Beth Lippman, executive director of Downtown New Jersey, a not-for-profit group that advocates downtown revitalization.

"It's about providing incentives for property owners to reinvest in their properties or to bring new people to invest in the properties," said Lippman. "It's a very important tool for downtown."

In Hackensack, the redevelopment plans for Main Street have been in the making for two years when the organization hired Street-Works LLC of New York as a consultant. Street-Works has been involved in several revitalization projects nationwide, including in Quincy, Mass., and Bethesda, Md. The alliance has paid the company more than $100,000 in the past two years, according to Lombardo, to study Main Street and develop ideas that will bring back shoppers.

Ken Narva, managing partner of Street-Works, said the city's downtown is suitable for redevelopment — with its proximity to the Bergen County Courthouse, Hackensack University Medical Center, major highways and its past of having a thriving business district. However, he said, its biggest challenge is the city's "archaic zoning" laws.

"It needs really serious work. It needs to have zoning tied to real development," Narva said. "Today you are not allowed to put certain uses on top of each other and parking ratios don't make any sense."

Narva says the city can benefit by allowing higher buildings to occupy Main Street that would include not only retail stores on the ground floor, but apartments and office space on other levels.

"This would be a place where you can walk to everything," he said. "Where the corner drug store is, where you go to meet people."

One of the proposals calls for HUMC to relocate some of its medical office space to downtown, Narva said.

"The hospital should look at this new downtown reorganized reposition district as an absolute destination by which they can build their hospital components," he said. "A lot of medical office space can come out of the hospital facility itself, a lot of the wellness components can come out of the hospital grounds."

Main Street would also be home to a large supermarket, have open public spaces where residents and workers would converge, and eventually be converted back into a two-way street, according to officials.

At a public session, some property owners questioned whether a designation of an "overlay district" would mean that their properties could be taken through eminent domain. Lombardo and Narva repeatedly said that taking over property would not be part of any plans.

Adrian Fleissman, owner of Broadway Fabrics on Main Street, said he hadn't heard of the redevelopment plans but said any improvements on Main Street need to be carefully planned, because past efforts have failed.

Although he expressed skepticism, he said more residential units would help, but that Main Street needs to lure people from all over the county, not just from Hackensack.

"The downtown can be great, but it has to be thought and managed in a business way," he said.

If the project were to proceed as it has been proposed, it would cost millions, but alliance officials said the expense would be paid by developers. They say, ideally, the new zoning rules would draw developers who would not only be willing to construct their projects but would also help with public improvements.

Main Street was a retail shopping hub in the early 20th century. It was the place where residents from across the county would flock to buy groceries and clothes, and also where out-of-towners would go to the theater for a weekend getaway.

In the 1950s, Main Street was home to several department stores and movie theaters.

Those days became part of city history when the shops and theaters shut down, losing business to the suburban malls that popped up along Routes 4 and 17. Since the 1990s, city officials have made attempts to revive Main Street, but vacancy signs and empty storefronts can still be seen along the strip.

[Skipx219]

I hope they're not encouraging HUMC to purchase property on Main St. and take more rateable's off the Table !

One of the proposals calls for HUMC to relocate some of its medical office space to downtown, Narva said.

"The hospital should look at this new downtown reorganized reposition district as an absolute destination by which they can build their hospital components," he said. "A lot of medical office space can come out of the hospital facility itself, a lot of the wellness components can come out of the hospital grounds."

[Editor]

As I understand it, these would be ancillary, taxable uses.

[just watching]

Hackensack hires attorney, planner to revamp Main Street
Friday, October 22, 2010
MONSY ALVARADO
The Record
Staff Writer

HACKENSACK — The city council has hired a planner and an attorney to help revamp zoning regulations along Main Street — a step toward future redevelopment that could bring drastic changes to the downtown.

 “This gives me hope and energy and it seems to be something that we could actually start with as a form of moving the downtown forward,’’ said Councilman Marlin Townes at a Thursday night council meeting where the Main Street Business Alliance presented its proposal for the downtown. “…I’m excited, I can actually see it, it’s a reality that I can believe in and support.”

The Main Street Business Alliance, the non-profit that oversees the special improvement district, wants the council to declare Main Street, from the Sears building to the Bergen County Courthouse, an “overlay district.” Declaring it an "overlay district" would allow new site and building design regulations to be established that could allow for taller buildings with residential units, more parking and outdoor dining.

The council has hired Attorney Douglas Doyle of the DeCotiis Fitzpatrick & Cole law firm and Planner Francis Reiner of DMR Architects, city officials said. Doyle will be paid $125 per hour.

“We are all very much on board with taking a vision and trying to find a way to turn it into reality,’’ said Mayor Karen Sasso.

The alliance, whose membership includes property and business owners, showed the mayor and council a power-point presentation by Street-Works LLC of New York, a mixed-use developer and consultant, hired by the alliance to analyze and develop ideas to improve the ailing strip.

Ken Narva, managing partner of Street-Works, said the city's downtown is suitable for redevelopment — with its proximity to the Bergen County Courthouse, Hackensack University Medical Center, major highways and its history of having a thriving business district.

Included in the proposed plans is creating three different mixed-used neighborhoods on Main Street, which would be either dominated by residential units, office space, or civic buildings. Narva said successful downtown’s need to be similar to the ones in the early part of the 20th century, a place where people live, work, eat and socialize.

The meeting was attended by dozens of residents and business owners, who welcomed the council’s decision to move forward. City resident Salvatore Puleio, who owns a business a few blocks from Main Street, said he moved to Hackensack more than 25 years ago because he felt the strip was on the verge of a turnaround.

“Back then it was when Hoboken was starting to come alive again, there were a number of areas in and around this area and in Manhattan that were being gentrified,’’ he said. “And I thought Hackensack had potential.”

Puleio said he is optimistic that strides will be made this time because of the Main Street Business Alliance’s participation.

“You have a group of property and business owners who have a vested interest,’’ he said.

E-mail: alvarado@northjersey.com


[just watching]

A few comments.  There is no need to declare an overlay district.  The City Council, in conjunction with the Planning Board, has the authority at any time to do the following:

(1) change the definition of the B2 zone
(2) change the boundaries of the B2 zone
(3) create a new zone with a new name, to cover all of parts of the B2 zone.

Whatever is done for Main Street should also be done for State Street, and at least for the west side of River Street.  The B2 zone already allows 150 foot buildings, including office and residential, and allows for massive lot coverage and no front yard setback. This is consistent with what a regional center-city downtown entails.

When the city updated its zoning in 2005, the B2 zone was expanded westwards, with the hope of encouraging larger development.  Malcolm Kasler tried to push the zoning in the other direction, to create an "Office" zone that had greater setbacks and disallowed residential.  Several people lobbied privately behind closed doors, at the 11th hour, to kill that change.  The "Office" zone still made it onto the zoning code, but it is being used for a very small area, and not in the downtown.

I think the best strategy here is to take the existing definiton of the B2 zone, and simply change the criteria to whatever the Planner comes up with that the city leaders accept.  All of these "overlay zones" adds to the confusion.   For the first three stories, side yards can be zero. That way there is continuity of storefronts from one property to the next, without narrow alleyways. Two levels of Parking decks above the ground level retail can abut against each other, who cares about that. But any office or residential tower ABOVE the lower 3 floors should have side yard setbacks that are substantial. This is being done in Manhattan, for instance. We dont' want to have balconies facing balconies, or windows facing windows, like the World Plaza building on Prospect Avenue. 

Another idea is to have the sides of residential buildings have no windows, like the Cameot tower at 245 Prospect Ave. That way residential towers can be erected with zero side yards. Almost like one Camelot building after another, and abutting each other, with zero setback on Main Street and lots of storefronts. Personally, that's a level of density that I would not support.

More appropriate would be to allow the side yards of lower floors to be zero setback, and allow mixed use with office, residential, and retail in the same building.

As for the parking criteria, I am going to stir the pot with this one.  I say ZERO parking for all retail use, but not reduce the standards for office or residential. We still need 2.1 parking spaces per residential unit. Anything less means the residents will be of lower socioeconomic class. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that, except the whole idea is to bring in new residents with DISPOSABLE INCOME who will swarm out of the new buildings every night and create a night life on the street. Also part of the rationale is that the patrons of the retail stores and restaurants will be the local people who work or live within walking distance. So their parking is already provided with their residential unit or their office building. Once Main Street is really hopping, we can designate the Atlantic Street Parking Garage to be used entirely for shoppers, and maybe build another further north. People think nothing of walking 1/2 mile to reach Washington Ave in Hoboken. That's the game plan.

As for the allowed height, we can put whatever we want on the books, but the geology is still going to dictate what is built. The bedrock is ridiculously deep, even deeper than it is at the banks of the Hackensack River. When the 8-story Paragon condo was built on State & Clay Streets a few years ago, it was originally approved with 2 levels of underground parking. They started to excavate, and realized they were literaly digging into an aquifer. They quickly went back to the Planning Board, which held an emergency session just to allow them to reconfigure the parking with only one level below ground. That is not a localized problem. That is the geology for all of State Street and adjacent Main Street. It's an aquifer, and it benefits nobody except Spotless Auto that draws water from it. So lets be real here, with what can and cannot be done.

[Editor]

Redevelopers make their case to city
Friday, October 29, 2010
Last updated: Friday October 29, 2010, 6:10 PM
BY MARK J. BONAMO
Hackensack Chronicle
Managing Editor

HACKENSACK — Ken Narva came to Hackensack as a man with a plan.

The managing partner of Street-Works LLC, a New York-based real estate development and consulting firm hired two years ago by Hackensack's Main Street Business Alliance, Narva offered a vision of a revitalized downtown where old memories of a vibrant Main Street will be new again.

"You have a downtown that has a history of being successful," said Narva, standing before City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono, the entire City Council and a crowd of about 60 local residents and businessmen at a special Oct. 21 council meeting where the alliance presented its proposal for a renewed city center. "If cities don't keep moving& they stall. And there have to be leaders to do it."

Narva's call to redevelopment arms comes at a time when the leaders of the city's special improvement district have called for changes in zoning regulations along Main Street to help reshape downtown and with it Hackensack's future.

Overlay district desired

The Main Street Business Alliance unveiled its redevelopment plans after holding information sessions for city residents and business owners in recent months. A critical component of its strategy is to make the stretch of Main Street from the Bergen County Courthouse to the Sears building an "overlay district." Such a district designation would allow Main Street, a one-way thoroughfare that travels just over a mile and is currently zoned for business use, to utilize new site and building design regulations. These new rules would permit new taller, mixed-use buildings that would include residential units, additional parking, a supermarket and outdoor eateries.

The alliance's proposal also includes the formation of three mixed-use neighborhoods along Main Street. A northern section, located south of the Sears building, would be primarily residential. A central section would have a civic focus, centered on City Hall and the Johnson Public Library. The southern section, near the courthouse, would revolve around office space and includes plans for Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) to shift some of its medical office space to the Main Street area.

Jerome Lombardo, chairman of the non-profit alliance, spoke at the council meeting in favor of adopting the overlay-zoning plan.

"If you like what you hear tonight, we ask you to embrace the plan, designate the boundaries, and then set the table, by creating new forward-thinking, practical zoning within the district, so as the economy recovers, the natural forces of the free market will help rebuild our downtown," said Lombardo, a real estate manager.

"We want to create a new downtown, a place where people will come to, not through," he added.

Consultant offers constructive critiques

During the presentation, Narva pointed out downtown Hackensack's strengths, including the city's position as the hub of Bergen County, itself a key tile in the mosaic of metropolitan New York. He cited as well the importance of having the county courthouse and HUMC within the city's boundaries, the proximity of major highways, and the remembered role of Main Street as the main artery of a pulsing business district.

However, Narva, whose company was paid more than $100,000 by the alliance in the past two years, according to Lombardo, also expressed strong opinions about what needed to be changed to bring Main Street back to its earlier 20th century glory, when the road was a county-wide retail and entertainment Mecca.

"Is one-way traffic on Main Street a success? No. It dooms it to failure," he said. "Main streets have to have great public places to arrive to, and have to have places to park. Great cities are designed from the street up."

Narva, noting his company has worked on similar redevelopment projects in cities such as Bethesda, Md. and West Hartford, Conn., then bluntly backed the proposed zoning changes.

"Your zoning does not work downtown," he said. "It's archaic, it's anti-development, it's anti-urban. It needs to change. That doesn't mean you change the zoning of the whole city. It means you have to change the zoning of this area."

Narva also addressed the fears of some property owners that the establishment of an "overlay district" would lead to their properties being taken through eminent domain.

"Nobody is going to take your property, nobody is kicking you out," Narva said. "This is free-market purchase and partnership. You don't want to sell your property? You don't want to be a tenant? You don't have to be. Downtowns are organic in how they grow."

Alliance officials added that the expense for the proposed project, which would cost millions, would be paid by developers, with new zoning regulations potentially encouraging developers to also help with public improvements.

In an interview after his council meeting presentation, Narva re-emphasized the importance of creating a new "overlay district" in downtown Hackensack by warning how this promising new future for the area could be derailed.

"The surefire way for this not to work is not to understand how complex it is, and that it takes a very experienced group to help insure that it stays on track all the way through," Narva said.

Residents, government look to downtown's future

After listening to the Main Street redevelopment plan presentation, council members made uniformly positive remarks, expressing hope for a more dynamic downtown.

"There's a very real possibility of moving the city of Hackensack forward," said Mayor Karen Sasso. "It's up to us to figure out what the specifics need to be."

Sasso also announced after the presentation that the City Council has hired planner Francis Reiner of DMR Architects and attorney Douglas Doyle of the DeCotiis Fitzpatrick & Cole law firm to review the redevelopment initiative, with Doyle to be paid $125 per hour.

While expressing uncertainty about how long, and exactly how, any redevelopment plans could be realized, Lo Iacono referred to Hackensack's past when looking to downtown's possible future.

"I want to see the kind of vibrant Main Street that we had when I was young and came here with my parents," said Lo Iacono, who sits on the alliance's board.

Albert Dib, the executive director of the Main Street Business Alliance and a lifelong resident of Hackensack, also hoped for a harmonious hybrid vision for a redeveloped Main Street.

"I want to see a respect for the past, and I want to see people," said Dib, who is also the city's historian. "It's really more about people than about structures, and about making a warm, inviting, community atmosphere."

Local business owner Lakhi Sangtani looked forward to more foot traffic flowing through his Main Street establishment.

"We have to give people a reason to come to Main Street," said Sangtani, who has owned Java's Brewin for five years. "If they can bring in more residents, more apartments and different services, they will have a reason."

Longtime Main Street business owner Jerry Some knows that the redevelopment plan is a first step in a long-term process, but he would rather hurry up than wait.

"It took us two years to get to this point," said Some, 83, who owns Some's Uniforms. "It could take us five or six years to get this done. My problem is that I want to be around to see it. It's started now, and I have something to look forward to. Change is a part of progress. You can't stop it."

City resident Sal Puleio expressed high hopes that his hometown on the Hackensack River might soon mirror the fate of a New Jersey town on the Hudson River.

"One of the reasons that I moved to Hackensack 27 years ago is that I like the urban environment," said Puleio, who owns an auto service shop several blocks from Main Street. "Back then, Hoboken was becoming alive again and being gentrified. Hackensack could just as easily be one of these places. I've been looking forward to this."

City residents have been looking forward for decades to a less-moribund Main Street, one with fewer shuttered storefronts.

Although Narva noted that any redevelopment process is "a marathon, not a sprint," he emphasized that now is the time for civic leaders to put on their running shoes.

"This city has every opportunity and chance to be successful," Narva said. "Right now, people go 'Hackensack?' with a question mark. That question mark has to become a period. It has to become an exclamation point."

E-mail: bonamo@northjersey.com

[Editor]

County Seat article.  Click to enlarge.

[irons35]

bulldoze the entire thing from Essex St to Passaic St and start over...