Public Work Sessions: Transit Oriented Development

[Editor]

From the City's site:

Please join us in drawing up a

A NEW VISION
for
DOWNTOWN HACKENSACK

Join us to work with faculty and students from NJIT to envision new ideas for
Downtown Hackensack around its transit facilities.

Where:
Hackensack Civic Center
65 Central Avenue, Hackensack

When:
March 24 | 9 AM – 2 PM
(topic: Hackensack assets)
&
March 31 | 9 AM – 2 PM
(topic: Transit oriented development)

Please confirm you are coming with Al Dib at 201-646-3908 adib@hackensack.org 

Lunch will be provided

A project sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration,
North Jersey Transportation Authority and NJ TRANSIT

[just watching]

Here's my gut instinct: Just what we need, a bunch of kids who've never been to Hackensack telling the city what to do by looking at maps.

Well, I guess I should keep an open mind.  You never know, maybe they'll come up with some genius ideas.  It can't hurt, I guess.

[Editor]

They're graduate students working towards degrees in Planning.  Yes, keep an open mind.  After all, the whole point to gather public input. I think the introductory presentation will be very interesting.

[Editor]

Reminder: There is one more meeting this Saturday.

[Edwin]

OK, here's a kid who knows Hackensack pretty well, was born and raised in Bergen county, and lives in Hackensack:  we need more transit. There's no good reason hundreds of miles of rail in NJ alone should go unused for passenger service. I look forward to the line opening that will go to Hawthorne.
And I'm especially looking forwards to the Tenafly line opening up. As if sitting outside at that old quaint building in Tenafly eatling lunch with my big fluffball samoyed dog there isn't wonderful enough, eventually we'll have a train to watch as it goes by too, it'll only add to Tenafly's Americana/Norman Rockwell feel, and all the commuters will get the chance to see the cutest dog in the tri-state area.

[Editor]

Student project helping to plan Hackensack’s downtown revival
Friday March 30, 2012, 8:25 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record

HACKENSACK — A group of rising urban planners is discovering opportunities for the city’s future where others may see relics of its past: the patches of unconnected walkways along its winding riverfront, its cement-clad bus terminal and two train stations that have served passengers for more than 150 years.

Those landmarks will be the center of proposals for a renewed Hackensack that a group of New Jersey Institute of Technology students are producing for the city, part of a federally funded project that assigns student task forces — with the support of a legion of professionals — to urban areas deemed to hold distinct, if untapped, potential.

“Hopefully, we could lay the groundwork that in the next couple of years could bring it back to its former self,” said Kyle Moran, an architecture major from Jefferson Township.
 
Such visions have been scrapped by the dozen in a city that has faced its share of decline and failed renewal projects in the decades since its glory days as the county’s retail and cultural center.

But the students aren’t the only ones to say this time is different.

Hackensack is undergoing what many longtime stakeholders described as one of the biggest pushes toward downtown revitalization they have seen — one that has united the city’s elected and business leaders and attracted attention from state officials and agencies capable of steering grant money the city’s way.

The work that the city has already done, including a soon-to-be-released study on downtown rezoning that is meant to attract big developers, made it an obvious target for the New Jersey Institute of Technology project, according to several of those involved.

“It’s one of those places in Bergen County where the future of development is going to occur,” said Rob Freudenberg, New Jersey director for Regional Plan Association, one of several non-profit planning and transit organizations involved in the project. “I think Hackensack has been waiting for this, and I do think the stars are aligning here.”

In addition to the students’ work — which the city gets for free — the project gives Hackensack officials access to, and attention from, a range of city planning and urban development professionals from throughout the region.

Regional Plan Association — an urban research and advocacy group focused on the tri-state area — is one of several large planning agencies backing up the project. The students also have support and guidance from North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority — a regional agency that secured the initial $330,000 grant for the project — and New Jersey Transit,  which contributed another $30,000.

“We don’t want this to be another doorstop planning study,” said Darius Sollohub, director of the New Jersey School of Architecture and a principal investigator for the grant. As an example of past successes, he rattled off several communities that have benefitted from NJIT’s attention, including Newark, Jersey City and Pleasantville. “We pick the projects we want to work on very carefully.”

The money and resources are split with another project concentrating on the Route 28 corridor in Union County.

Hackensack officials said they hope the project will dovetail with work they have been doing to attract developers to the Main Street corridor, which still holds the skeleton of an old-fashioned town center. The first public draft of that project, which will consider new zoning, parking and other infrastructure changes, is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

“This could be a way to facilitate more movement through the city, perhaps resulting in either people coming here to work through mass transit or even deciding to live here through mass transit,” said Councilwoman Karen Sasso.

The students will work with local business owners, city officials, real estate developers and other professionals to create development plans for half-mile circles surrounding the two train stations — on Essex and Anderson streets — and the River Street bus station, all of which transport passengers throughout the region and into New York City.

Models for the project include New Brunswick and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The students also are soliciting feedback from the general public at two workshops, the second of will be held Saturday afternoon.

The students said they have been inspired so far by the city’s river access, the density of the original brick buildings in the downtown business district and the sheer number of people they see walking through town.

“The city is populated,” said Cory Fernandez, 26, a fourth-year undergrad from Bridgewater. “There’s a culture of people constantly moving around and doing their daily stuff. It’s not a dead city.”

The students’ plans should set the groundwork for further development in the city, said David Behrend, an NJTPA spokesman.

“If they can show they’ve done this kind of planning work and they’ve got the community buy-in, it gives them a leg up for funding that may actually pay for physical changes and improvements,” he said.

If you go

Students and advisers working on the NJIT project planning transit-oriented development in Hackensack are holding a public workshop Saturday to discuss design opportunities for the city.
•Where: Hackensack Civic Center, 65 Central Ave.
•When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
•RSVP: Al Dib, 201-646-3908 or adib@hackensack.org
•Lunch will be provided.

Email: akin@northjersey.com

[Editor]

Student-planners take on Hackensack city design
Sunday April 1, 2012, 9:52 AM
BY COLLEEN DISKIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record

HACKENSACK - Bring back jitney buses, relocate the city's two train stations, add a bike path along Passaic Street and connect it to a greenway along the Hackensack River.

Ideas flowed freely Saturday as a group of college-student planners got together with longtime residents, business owners and city officials to create a new vision for redeveloping the city, one that builds on its most underused and underappreciated assets - its transit stations.

"It's not planners sitting in an office designing," said Roger Smith, an adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in explaining why he brought his 12 student-planners to the workshop at the Hackensack Civic Center. "It's reaching out to the people who know the community. They are the ones who have enormous insight into the functioning of a community."

The students - through a grant program - have been asked to design a plan to revitalize the neighborhoods around the two NJ Transit stations on Essex and Anderson streets, respectively, and the River Street bus terminal.

First, the students outlined their idea to create three of what they called "transit-oriented development districts" in the city, similar to ones already thriving in Morristown, New Brunswick and Rahway. Then they asked the roughly 25 people in attendance to gather round one of three tables, where maps of those three parts of towns were laid out. Planners listened and shaded in the block-by-block maps as those who know the city best pointed out every empty lot, shuttered store, unlit sidewalk and hard-to-navigate street.

After more than two hours of detailing every asset and liability in all three neighborhoods, representatives of the three groups shared ideas with the professional planners and city officials in attendance.

For the Essex Street neighborhood, the biggest suggested change was moving the station from its relatively isolated location a few blocks over to Atlantic Street and Railroad Avenue, where it could better serve employees of Hackensack University Medical Center, and perhaps ease the hospital's parking crunch.

A similar relocation was suggested for the Anderson Street station, where the building burned down in 2009 and is slated to be rebuilt.

In their current locations, both stations are used by only a few hundred riders a day.

Building more residential units closer to the two stations would likely boost ridership and, by extension, create more customers and opportunities for stores, restaurants and service-related businesses, planners suggested.

The city's current zoning laws don't allow for such mixes of residential and commercial developments along Main Street, points out Jerry Lombardo, owner of a commercial real estate company in the city and chairman of the Upper Main Street Alliance.

Zoning changes

Business leaders and city officials are on the verge of announcing a new zoning and development plan for Main Street and the downtown. Lombardo said he hopes the city, which is the county seat, will finally build on some of its natural advantages to become more of a destination spot in the region.

"We have the [population] density, we have the cultural mix, we have the location," Lombardo said. "We just need a plan to connect all these dots."

At minimum, the city needs to do a better job of getting those who live and work in the city - particularly the nearly 10,000 combined employees of the hospital and the county - to frequent the stores and shops in downtown Hackensack, Lombardo said.

Toward that goal, most in attendance said the best solution would to reintroduce jitney bus service - which the city had once but discontinued - to bring employees of the hospital and the county into the downtown areas.

Widening Passaic Street and adding a bike path that would stretch down to the Hackensack River was also urged.

Extending river walk

Those who examined the region around the city's bus terminal on River Street pointed to different needs. The terminal itself should be more eye-appealing and welcoming. And city officials should develop planning guidelines that require new businesses along the river to donate space to extend the existing walkway and to incorporate greenery into their designs.

Kerry McKenna, a member of the Hackensack Recreation and Cultural Arts Board, listed as an example the now-vacant building on River Street that formerly served as headquarters for The Record.

Numerous times Saturday, attendees made reference to the property and said they had heard that Walmart is considering buying it.

A spokesman for North Jersey Media Group, which owns The Record and the riverside property, said the company has not finalized a plan for what will become of the land.

"We are evaluating a number of options for our property," said Kirsten A. von Hassel, vice president for marketing. "There will be an announcement when we reach a decision."

If Walmart or another big-box retailer seeks to locate on that spot, McKenna urged town leaders to negotiate a more appealing design for a building, one with a parking structure underneath the store itself.

McKenna also said the property should include a pathway along the river that would be accessible to the public.

Ideas discussed at the workshop Saturday will be incorporated into the first draft of a plan the NJIT students intend to present more formally to the city in June.

Email: diskin@northjersey.com

[just watching]

Well, at least they are on to some good ideas, river walkway, connecting it to Passaic Street, etc.

Great, they want to bring back the jitney bus, which was very successful except the vehicles kept breaking down. Did it pay for itself, NOPE, but that's not a mandatory standard to impose. Almost all mass-transit is subsidized. The STATE wanted this jitney, but they wouldn't subsidize it and they wouldn't provide decent working vehicles. Also, the whole idea of that "trolley" was to get people to and from the train stations, so if they move the train stations they have to change the jitney route and that might leave off key destinations like the County complex.

I'm really unsure about moving the train stations. For instance, the Essex Street station has a huge parking lot for commuters, and someone would have to buy land near Atlantic Street for that.  Unless they could buy the new HUMC parking tower. 

And the article didn't say where the Anderson Street station would be moved to, you've got a luxury apartment building under construction on Linden, and they picked that lot specifically because it's right at the train station. Instead of moving the Anderson Street station, I would be really interested in redeveloping the whole block bounded by Passaic Street, the Railroad, Anderson St, and Park Street, into some huge mix-use project, right next to the train station. Almost everything on that square block is old and worn out, and the retail on the south side of Anderson Street is really tacky, it includes some of the lowest-end stores anywhere in Hackensack. That strip brings the city down. If I had to pick one area of the city most in need of redevelopment, it would be that square block.

Oh, and I would be remiss not to comment on this quote from the article about the Record campus: "We are evaluating a number of options for our property," said Kirsten A. von Hassel, vice president for marketing. "There will be an announcement when we reach a decision."  He's missing something. The PLANNING BOARD and the people of Hackensack are going to have something to say about that property.  They aren't going to decide whatever they want, and then simply announce it to Hackensack. That's not going to be the final word.

[BLeafe]

Oh, and I would be remiss not to comment on this quote from the article about the Record campus: "We are evaluating a number of options for our property," said Kirsten A. von Hassel, vice president for marketing. "There will be an announcement when we reach a decision."  He's missing something.

What's missing is an "S" before "he's". How many guys do you know named "Kirsten"? 

[just watching]

I just copied that from The Record article.  Don't know what is the correct spelling of his or her name.

[just watching]

I don't know if these NJIT students are checking this website for comments.

They should go to downtown South Orange, and look at the huge new complex just north of the train station, along the tracks.  It's 1/2 block north of South Orange Ave, on the east side.  It's huge and new, you can't miss it.  This type of mixed-use transit-village development is exactly what needs to be built on the square block bounded by Anderson Street, Park Street, Passaic Street, and the railroad.  The South Orange complex has hundreds of upscale apartments or condos, and street-level storefronts.

Don't know why these kids are missing this. Where is the transit-village related proposals, or is that specifically NOT part of their directive.

[Editor]

Please join us in viewing the

FINAL PRESENTATION
of the:
HACKENSACK
TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT STUDIO

where:
Hackensack Council Chamber
Hackensack City Hall
65 Central Avenue, Hackensack

when:
Monday
May7 | 7 PM

please confirm you are coming with Al Dib at 201-646-3908 adib@hackensack.org

a project sponsored by
the Federal Highway Administration
North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority
and
NJ TRANSIT

[Editor]

Development plan aims to take advantage of Hackensack transit access
By Katie Eder
NJBiz
5/8/12

In a separate undertaking from Hackensack's recently unveiled Main Street rehabilitation plan, a group of New Jersey Institute of Technology graduate students have mapped out potential growth areas that focus on the city's three downtown transit hubs.

The students' semester-long community visioning exercise was funded by a grant from the Federal Highway Administration, funneled through the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority.

According to Darius Sollohub, the project's principal investigator and associate professor of architecture at NJIT's College of Architecture and Design, the NJTPA and NJ Transit asked the group to explore high-level, transit-oriented development within a half-mile radius of the city's two train stations and bus terminal, which he said encompasses almost the entire downtown area.

In its initial findings, the group — which is comprised of 11 NJIT graduate students and private-sector transportation, design and real estate consultants — recommended the city construct higher-density pathways; a longer walkway along the riverfront; shared parking spaces for commuters, visitors and residents; and mixed-use buildings to embed retail development in residential communities over a time span of 20 years. Sollohub said a draft of the report will be presented in June, and the final report will be issued in November.

"Transportation is the primary driver for a higher-density area, but there has to be other amenities to drive people there," Sollohub said. "Green space and park space is often associated with transit-oriented development, so we focused on those key sites."

Although the transportation planning agency considered several areas in its 13-county region for the redevelopment grant, it decided to focus planning efforts on Hackensack because it identified the city as "a place that already has good transit service and facilities, but where more could be done," said David Behrend, a NJTPA spokesman. "We really looked at places where the transit structure is working as a place for job growth and residential growth, and Hackensack is a good example of work that can be done."

Sollohub said Hackensack is very similar to New Brunswick — since it also is a county seat that houses a university, hospital and sophisticated transit system — so NJIT's transit-oriented plan recommends the city to follow New Brunswick's lead by bringing on a large-scale developer, like New Brunswick Development Corp.

But Hackensack city manager Stephen Lo Iacono said the city has "no plans like bringing a Devco in," noting that New Brunswick's plan focuses on redevelopment, not rehabilitation. He said Hackensack will reach out to developers located in the downtown area to facilitate Main Street's rehabilitation.

While the rehabilitation plan — which will be presented before the city's planning board on May 9 — has occurred simultaneously with the transit-oriented plan since January, Lo Iacono said the projects are not related, but could easily cross paths.

"Neither has anything to do with other. The NJIT project is a kind of a snapshot of what's happened here and what can happen through improvements tied into transit," Lo Iacono said. "But I would be surprised if we didn't incorporate some of their elements into our plan."

[just watching]

New Brunswick is doing it the right way, with REDEVELOPMENT, not a focus on rehab.  The city was a dump 30 years ago, and look at it today, it's a miracle.  You see, the problem with having the downtown Business Improvement District is that they will be loathe to recommend tearing down any of their own properties. Notice how some ideas talked about in the past, like redeveloping everything from Banta Place to the Railroad, have just quietly disappeared.  Still a great idea.

I do believe that "something" concrete will actually be done with the current plans, and that it will be a big positive to the community.  But it's a downscaled opportunity compared to what really should be done.

[Homer Jones]

Part of the miracle in New Brunswick is called money. Since the 1970's there has been an organization in New Brunswick called New Brunswick Tomorrow which was substantially funded by Johnson and Johnson. Johnson and Johnson had "threatened" to leave New Brunswick unless there was a major turnaround. Between Rutgers University, J and J and State Senator John Lynch money for wholesale clearance and redevelopment was not a problem.
In today's world large scale redevelopment is no longer possible. Between the reluctance of the financial markets to participate in large redevelopment efforts, the unavailability of Federal funding and loss of eminent domain as a tool for cities, tax abatement may be the only incentive out there to get any project under way. Then, of course, tax abatement is a dirty word which ranks up there with eminent domain.