Dear Editor:
The pair of 17-story towers planned for 101 Marshall Street will have a profoundly negative impact on the southwest corner of Hoboken. Not only are these structures grotesquely out of keeping with the scale of the neighborhood, but they will cause traffic and sewage nightmares.
Downtown Harrison and Marshall Streets, where the buildings are to be located, are in a flood zone; this area fills with several inches of standing water during every heavy rainfall. With the 100 percent lot coverage granted to the developers of this project, the exiting drainage problems will be exacerbated. Add to that the load to be placed on an already overburdened sewage system and this project becomes truly unsanitary and harmful.
Further, 101 Marshall Street abuts Paterson Plank Road in a terribly traffic-congested area. A non-stop flow of buses, trucks and cars comes in and out of Hoboken on Paterson Plank Road, causing major backups around the Observer Highway intersections during the morning and evening rush hours.
The prospect of this development’s seven-story parking garage providing spaces for 431 more vehicles in this corner of town is daunting. Hoboken simply does not have the infrastructure to handle a project of this size in its southwest corner. Local residents concerned about the potential damage to their own property from overload sewage and drainage systems or the traffic congestion that will build up around Paterson Plank Road should speak up now before it is too late.
Ann Wallace