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