You know that a town meeting is hot when it draws a standing room only crowd despite going head to head with game five of the World Series.
But such was the case Thursday night as the Historic Hudson Street Coalition (HHSC) hosted a public forum on the future of Stevens Institute of Technology’s plans for development.
The meeting drew a slew of politicos, including eight out of nine City Council members, several city directors, a number of developers, educators, the Board of Education president as well as scores of community activists.
Making a rare appearance before city’s groups was Stevens President Dr. Hal Raveche, who went over point by point conceptual plans for future development and for the first time publicly discussed the school’s intention to form a public private/partnership with the city to improve the town’s schools.
Earlier this year, the Historic Hudson Street Coalition, a residents’ group, thwarted Stevens’ plans to construct a 300-space parking garage at Eighth and Hudson streets. The university was forced to revise its plans.
By far the most controversial aspect of Raveche’s presentation Thursday was the acknowledgement that Stevens, in cooperation with the city, is investigating purchasing the waterfront Maxwell House property to create among other things a technology and science-based middle school that would eventually expand to include a high school. The property extends from 10th to 12th Streets along the waterfront.
The land is currently owned by private developers Daniel Gans and George Vallone, who want to erect a 982-unit residential development there. Some activists have opposed their plans.
Gans and Vallone sat in the back of the room in disbelief Thursday as Raveche presented conceptual plans about property that Stevens does not own.
"It’s absurd," said a baffled Gans after the meeting. "They can’t just take private property and do what they like with it. In no way are we negotiating. So the only way they are going to get our land is through condemnation."
The proposed middle school, which has been touted by the mayor, also is controversial because the Board of Education has not given approval to divert state funds that were already earmarked for the renovation of existing schools toward the new project. It is unclear whether they will be able to do so.
Only a concept
Throughout his presentation, Raveche stressed two points. One was that they do not own the Maxwell House property and would have to acquire the land with the help of the city. The second point was that Raveche’s presentation is only in the conceptual stage and is only the beginning of a process that includes gathering input from the public. "If we learned anything from the recent past," he said, "it is that we must involve and engage the public and the community in the planning process."
As a theoretical plan, Raveche said that Stevens with the aid the city could purchase the land from the developers. Then it would divide the land into four parts. One component would be the school. It would start as a middle school, with the sixth grade being the only class during the initial year. It would expand every year after to include an additional grade until the school would be a fully functioning science and technology magnet middle and high school, with an estimated 600 to 700 students.
While Raveche did not rule out the possibly of having non-Hoboken students attend the school, he said that Hoboken students would not be left out. "This is a defining moment for the city’s educational system and a real opportunity to transform it into a premier school system," he said. "All Hoboken students that are academically qualified will be accepted no mater what their socio-economic level."
The second part of the proposed plan for the Maxwell House would be to have a public park. Part of the park would be a waterfront park and walkway that is similar to the park in Gans and Vallone’s application. The waterfront park would be nearly identical in size to that of Pier A park, approximately four acres. The second part of the park proposal for Stevens would be to build a baseball field on the original location of Elysian Field, where many historians speculate that the first game of baseball was played.
The third aspect of the of the Maxwell House property would be a Technology Pavilion that would house Steven Technogenesis, and small business incubation program. The program supports small businesses that are on the cutting edge of technology and are being developed by the school with the assistance of outside venture capital.
The final component of the plan would be to have a developer build 300 units of market-rate housing. Another important aspect of the Stevens plan would be that the school and the city would restore some of the existing Maxwell House buildings. Some in the community deem those buildings as historically important. Under Gans and Vallone’s plan every building on the site would be destroyed.
Questions were raised about how such a purchase would be funded.
"We will work jointly with the city to raise money from local, state and federal funding," Raveche said.
He was then asked whether or not state Abbott Funds for "special needs" urban districts would be used to purchase the land, as widely rumored.
"One resource for funding is the Abbott Funds, but that is not the only way to raise money," Raveche said. "There are many other resources, such as the state’s Department of Education grants and federal Department of Education grants, as well as community and private sector funding."
When asked what contribution Stevens would make, Raveche said that the school is in negotiations to make PILOT (Payment in Lieu in Taxes) payments to the city for the Technology Pavilion. They also will provide scholarships to Stevens for qualified students at the new school. The rest of the money to buy the land will have to come from the city in the form of taxes, grants or other resources.
After the meeting, City Council President Tony Soares said that it is in the best interest of Gans and Vallone to negotiate with the city. "They are simply greedy developers," said Soares. "They don’t care what benefits the city. They only care about their wallet. This city has for too long been known as the city with the most bars. Wouldn’t it be nice to be known as a town with really great schools? That’s what I believe this plan will lead to. The Steven family were the first one in Hoboken and think it is only fitting that Stevens should be the one to finish the waterfront."
Other projects
Another piece of property that Stevens does not own but non-the-less presented their plans for was Hoboken’s lone waterfront industry, Union Dry Dock. "We are currently in negotiations with Union Dry Dock to acquire their property," Raveche said, "not for commercial industry but for public use and for use by the school."
Raveche said if they could obtain that property, the school would like to build a NCAA-sized track with regulation soccer/lacrosse field. Between the field and the Hudson River there would be a waterfront walkway.
Just south of Union Dry Dock and the new Castle Point Park (which is slated to open by the end of the year) is a piece of waterfront land owned by Stevens that is currently being used as a parking lot and a physical plant. At that location, the school would like to build the Harbor Estuary Center. That would entail closing the Davis Lab, which is on Hudson Street between Seventh and Eighth streets. The Davis Lab houses a huge aquatic tank that tests prototypes for boats and tests tidal conditions. Every boat that sailed in the Gulf War had a prototype that was tested at Davis Lab well before it was sea ready.
The Harbor Estuary Center would be a long clear transparent building and would house a tank that would be used by the school and by the Department of Environmental Protection to test tidal conditions. Also, the Army Corps of Engineers would use it to test ships and civil engineering projects such as bridges. Approximately one third of the land where the Harbor Estuary Center is slated to be built will be used for a waterfront walkway and a publicly accessible park.
The Davis Lab will be torn down, and if the conceptual plan is completed, the school will build no more than 40 units of market rate housing along Hudson Street, which would be taxable by the city and would produce revenue for Stevens.
According to Raveche, the school is currently raising funds to build the Harbor Estuary Center. His timetable for fundraising for the project is between one and two years. Then the school must receive planning and zoning permission from the city and the structure would take slightly over a year to build. According to Raveche, if everything goes smoothly, the timetable on for the Harbor Estuary Center would be three to four years.
Of all the plans presented Thursday night, the only one that has been approved by the city’s Planning Board and has full funding ($30 million) is the six-story Lawrence T. Babbio Technology Management building. The school broke ground on the facility Friday, Oct. 12 at Fifth Street and Castle Point Terrace.
"One of our major program needs was for a building to locate our technology management program," said Raveche. "Lucent’s stock is where it’s at today because of poor technology management, and that is why we feel that it is so important that we bolster our school of technology management."
Accompanying the Babbio Center the school’s plans to apply for an 800 car in ground terrace sloped parking garage that will have entrances on Fifth Street and Sinatra Drive. "Our needs as a school is for 1,400 parking spaces," he added. "Our original plans called for a much bigger garage, but it was discovered that a garage of that size was highly undesirable by the residents in Hoboken, so we scaled down the number of spaces. The remaining 600 spaces that we will need can be made up by purchasing land on the city’s west side, and we will build perimeter parking lots."
Raveche also hinted that the school’s physical plant and maintenance buildings might be moved to the west side of the mile-square city.
The final aspect of the Stevens’ master plan was in the interior of the campus. The school would like to build 350 units of new dormitory space. There are no renderings, as of yet, for the new dorms. A timetable for the fundraising and completions has yet to be set.
Many of those who left the Thursday night meeting expressed a cautious optimism.
"It’s a step in the right direction," said Councilman Chris Campos. "I’m glad that Stevens is showing the effort to see the public’s opinion. This is but an early step in a long process, but I’m pleased that the public is being heard."
Councilwoman Carol Marsh expressed similar sentiments about Raveche’s presentations.
"We saw lots of beautiful things tonight," she said. "Now we get to see if they are nothing more than pipe dream, or are they going to be able to make these plans a reality."