Representatives from the African-American community gathered on Martin Luther King Drive Wednesday afternoon to watch Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham and others break ground on an affordable housing project in the heart of the city’s economically depressed Bergen/Lafayette section. Officials said the event is proof positive that waterfront development is benefiting the city by spreading westward into the neighborhoods most desperate for economic rejuvenation.
Goldman Sachs fully financed the $5 million project with a charitable contribution.
The project will create 21 condominiums at 412-420 MLK Drive that will range in price from $60,000 to $130,000. Located adjacent to a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stop and within walking distance of the King Drive Shopping Plaza, the housing complex is just one of a series of recent Ward F projects aimed at reviving the historically-black neighborhood that for 20 years has suffered from high crime rates and abandoned properties.
“We’re making this a golden neighborhood, spike by spike by spike,” Cunningham said. “That’s where we’re heading. We could not have done it without Goldman Sachs.”
Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson thanked Goldman Sachs for their investment, saying she hopes the MLK Drive project and other future development projects will employ local residents and make them a part of King Drive’s rebirth.
“A lot of development that has taken place has left some people out of the loop,” Richardson said. “Thank you for leaving the waterfront and not leaving Ward F behind.”
Richardson continued with a plea to other companies in the city’s business community, asking them to follow in Goldman Sachs’ footsteps and finance housing projects in the city’s most needy neighborhoods.
“You need to fill these empty lots with housing people can live in,” she said. “You need to replace abandoned buildings with housing people can live in.”
Neighborhood residents present at the groundbreaking echoed Richardson’s comments, saying their neighborhood is in desperate need of jobs and affordable housing.
“This is what we need,” said Union Street resident Irving Chislun, 44, an open-air vendor who said he was hired Wednesday by the contractor building the MLK Drive project. “I think it’s a good thing that the company is doing it for nothing.”
Goldman Sachs’ funding of the project was informally a giveback for a deal the firm made with the city to provide them with tax incentives on the waterfront, where they are building their world headquarters. The mayor said he informally brokered that aspect of the exchange with managing director Judah Sommer.
The project, Sommer said, marks the first affordable housing undertaking in the company’s history.
“Goldman Sachs is not in the business of developing affordable housing, and this is the only affordable housing project we’ve done anywhere in the world,” Sommer said. “We are delighted to do this. It was your mayor’s vision that got us to where we are today.”
Investing in the black community
The area in which the new 21 units will be built was – and still is – a high-profile area in the city’s black community. The building on the corner approaching the light rail station bears on its façade a mural/portrait dedicated to Ada Marshall, the first black woman to be authorized to sell newspapers within Jersey City.
Cunningham said the spot holds a special place in his memory because it was within his first beat as a Jersey City police officer in the late 1960s. In addition, former City Councilman Bill Thornton, who Cunningham said was an inspiring force in his life, also had his office in the neighborhood.
Cunningham said he met his longtime political associate Joseph Cardwell in 1967 outside the 418 Club, a popular watering hole Cunningham said he frequented after his shifts.
“As proud as I am to be mayor of Jersey City, I’m especially proud to be at this spot today,” Cunningham said.
During the pre-groundbreaking comments, a trio of Snyder High School students titled “Chosen” sang what they said was the “Negro National Anthem,” a song entitled “Lift Every Voice and Sing” composed by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson. Bishop Thomas Robinson, president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Jersey City, also led a benediction asking for blessings to all those involved in the project.
Goldman Sachs’ Sommer said the placement of this project was well-suited to the neighborhood’s imminent renewal, and that it will serve as a harbinger of future re-enfranchisement of Bergen/Lafayette.
“This is critical for Jersey City,” Sommer said. “We’re taking what Ms. Marshall stood for and making truly affordable housing right here in Jersey City.”
The MLK Drive housing project will also act as a training ground for local non-profits like the Ministerial Alliance to partner with other organizations like the Jersey City Episcopal Community Development Corporation to develop affordable housing.
Some city officials said the MLK Drive housing project is exceptional because it illustrates the good that can come from the City Council granting tax abatements, an often criticized municipal practice.
“I think this project is wonderful,” Councilman-at-Large Jerramiah Healy said. “This is a good, wise and productive use of the city’s abatement power. It brings development to a place where investment wouldn’t otherwise come.”