North Bergen officials are trying to insure that a site designated as a future parking lot for the NJ Transit Hudson-Bergen Light Rail System is more than just a place to leave your car.
According to township administrator Joseph Auriemma, the designated area, a former trailer park located on Tonnelle Avenue and 49th Street, used to generate significant tax revenues when it was privately owned.
But since NJ Transit forced the evacuation of the trailer community last year in order to build a park-and-ride facility at the site, the tax revenues have stopped. That’s why Auriemma wants to see something more at the site than a parking lot, which will not generate any revenues.
“Because not all the funding is in place for the Light Rail, this could be the last stop on the Light Rail for many years to come,” Auriemma said. “So why should we have only surface parking there?”
NJ Transit paid $3.3 million for the property last year. The residents of the trailer park were forced to leave soon after, so the lot remains vacant right now. Work on the North Bergen stretch of the Light Rail system has already begun on Tonnelle Avenue and Paterson Plank Road and is slated to begin at the Tonnelle Avenue site within the next two years.
Auriemma is trying to get NJ Transit to secure some of the six acres for commercial and retail developments, in order to recoup some of the lost taxes.
NJ Transit has proposed three possible plans to the township for the site.
One calls for the construction of two office buildings, approximately five stories in height, which will fill a total of 180,000 square feet. It would also hold a five-story parking deck that will serve both the Light Rail and the office structure that would accommodate 750 cars and a second five-story deck that would hold 400 spots, strictly for the office workers.
Another plan calls for two office buildings of seven stories each, encompassing 280,000 square feet and two five-story parking decks, each having 750 parking spaces.
The third plan calls for two five-story office buildings with a total of 300,000 square feet and one five-story parking deck with 1,500 parking spaces.
In each proposal, retail space will be secured.
Although the plan seems agreeable to NJ Transit, a spokesman from NJ Transit believes that parking for the Light Rail is at a premium.
“We have a parking problem throughout the system,” said Michael Klufas of NJ Transit. “Our Light Rail lots are starting to fill throughout the line. Every time we open a facility, the lot gets filled, so I would think that we would want that area for mostly parking. Every chance we get to maximize parking, we maximize it.”
There is no other combined retail/commercial space at any other NJ Transit parking facility in the state.