When developer Michael Mandelbaum asked the city for an easement on some city-owned land next to his property adjacent to Liberty State Park in 1999, one of the city’s requests was that he rehabilitate an old pedestrian footbridge into the park from the foot of Jersey Avenue.
The new crossing over the tail end of the Big Basin would replace an old railroad bridge – described by one of the developers as "rickety" and made of 2×4’s nailed across a series of old wooden piles driven into the marsh – that has been used for years by park patrons and city residents.
The easement was granted after Mandelbaum presented the City Council with drawings showing a 30-story, 500-unit luxury apartment building on the property. He was then given a certain amount of time to complete the roadway to the property as well as the footbridge project. He did not officially submit plans for approval of the apartment project; it was just an example of what they might build.
When work on the footbridge wasn’t completed by the ordinance-imposed deadline, 55LotDev, Mandelbaum’s company, received an extension that brought the deadline to Dec. 31, 2002.
Now eight months overdue, the bridge into Liberty State Park [LSP] remains mostly unfinished – prompting some city residents to complain about the delay.
Mandelbaum’s attorney says the delay on the footbridge was caused by both the city and Liberty State Park when they requested that additional infrastructural and cosmetic work be done around the bridge. Even park officials, who previously expressed worry that the bridge would never be finished, now say the bridge is moving along and will be completed shortly.
"The delay had to do with construction plans, some detail on plans, [and] fire hydrants that were being required," said outgoing LSP superintendent Steve Ellis. "There was an omission. But this is a positive project. This is a good thing for park patrons and Jersey City residents, who are one in the same. It’s been slow this month, but I’m confident this project will get done by the end of September and it’ll be a big benefit for park patrons."
One outspoken resident, however, argues that the city is being scammed by a developer who has no intention of holding up his end of the bargain.
"The whole situation is that everyone’s trying to play games," said Mia Scanga, a local activist and cable talk show host. "The bottom line is that they didn’t really want to fix the footbridge. There’s a lot of foot-dragging because they’re not making any money."
Too many voices
Daniel Horgan, Mandelbaum’s Secaucus-based attorney, said the delay is because the project has been plagued since its inception by changing plans and the presence of too many requests and demands.
When the easement was granted under the Schundler administration, the city had initially intended to build a road for automobile traffic from Jersey Avenue to the intersection of Zapp and Phillip drives. Because the piece of land between the footbridge and the intersection is owned by the state, Mandelbaum would’ve needed to get federal permits to build on it.
The federal government, however, rejected the plan after a meeting with city planners and the Army Corps of Engineers, who said the automobile road wouldn’t be feasible. As a result, the city decided to enter into a land swap with the park so that the contested state-owned land would become city property. This process was the first to delay construction on the site.
After the city decided to abandon its automobile access road into the park, Mandelbaum was given the green light to seek permits to build the smaller access road into his property. It was at this point when the various requests for the area surrounding the road started coming in.
"What we had to do came in two parts," Horgan said. "One is what we are required to do by the ordinance, which is build a road, build a sidewalk on the road, put in a water pipe, add some fire hydrants, install street drains, fix the bridge, put in some lighting, replace the fencing and don’t make a mess, I guess. There was some other specifications on those things in terms of plans."
Added Horgan, "What we had in addition to that was to put a couple of lights along the asphalt pathway and put some fencing along the pathway." These requests and some other minor cosmetic considerations were requested by LSP officials.
In order to get required permits and site plan approval for the work, Mandelbaum was required to go through the planning department and other municipal agencies. These agencies all added their own specifications to the project, like the planning department’s request for subdivisions so that maps on the property can be updated to conform to tax maps. Then LSP officials made yet another request to fix some drainage problems at the corner of Zapp and Phillips drives.
"We said, ‘Sure, why not?’" Horgan said. "Between us, the Municipal Utilities Authority [MUA] and the park, we wound up with a complicated process. There were three guys down there working and 14 people suggesting how it should be done. But the MUA made a lot of good suggestions that should’ve been made a lot earlier. We said, ‘Sure, we want to make it nice and accommodate everybody.’"
"It’s the most looked-after street in the city," Horgan added. "We always said ‘OK, we’ll try and do the right thing’ but we, quite frankly, had a problem with everybody huffing and puffing and saying, ‘I’m in charge.’ "
As it stands now, the bridge was recently fitted with new wooden beams across the grounded piles. Horgan said some of the pedestrian areas are still being fiddled with and that the fencing and lighting still hasn’t been built.
Sense of mistrust
Scanga said she still feels Mandelbaum never intended to follow through with his plans. This is because when the new ordinance renewing the easement was presented to the city council in 2000, the clause specifying rehabilitative work to the footbridge was omitted.
"He was going to flip the property," Scanga said. "If I didn’t get involved during the revised ordinance, it would’ve slipped through the cracks. [When Mandelbaum applied for the easement], things were booming. But no one is going to buy a condo with views of Johnston Avenue or of cars on the Turnpike. And they knew that. There was a lot of hush-hush at City Hall so that they could let the footbridge [clause] go away."
Mandelbaum and his business partner – an attorney named Colin M. Danzis who had previously done work on a contractual basis for the city – had initially unveiled plans in 1999 to build a 30-story, 500-unit luxury apartment building on property they owned at an estimated cost of $100 million. Saying they were taking a major risk with the plans, the two requested the easement so as to build a cul-de-sac leading into the property from the park’s existing streets.
And at that time, that section of Jersey City – now entitled Liberty Harbor North – was a hot real estate market because of private plans by former North Bergen mayor and developer Peter Mocco to build a large, mixed-use community bounded by Grand Street on the north, Luis Munoz Marin Boulevard on the east, Jersey Avenue on the west and the tidewater basin on the south.
More interest in the site was subsequently generated when the planning department in early 2001 released its redevelopment plan for the area, which called for 4 million square feet of office space, more than 1 million square feet of hotel space and an average of 450,000 square feet of retail space. Spread out over 28 city blocks, the Liberty Harbor North area would also include 6,000 residential units and an entertainment section modeled after Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers.
When asked about the progress of the apartment building, Horgan said 55LotDev never intended nor ever sought approval to build it and that its 1999 presentation to the City Council was only meant to give city officials an idea of what was possible at the site.
To make matters worse in Scanga’s eyes, nothing was heard from Mandelbaum until 2002, when the possibility of a signal tower being erected in Hudson County materialized in response to the loss of the antennas at the World Trade Center in New York.
Pitched as a possible Jersey City site, Mandelbaum’s parcel was part of a proposal to the Metropolitan Television Alliance that included plans with the Liberty Science Center to construct a public observation deck on the structure.
Future plans
Horgan said Mandelbaum’s next move will be a formal request for the city to officially consummate the land exchange.
"The land hasn’t been officially swapped," Horgan said. "They’ve gotten all the required approvals; it just hasn’t been officially exchanged."
And as far as the future of the property, Horgan said only time will tell.
"We’re waiting to see what happens in the market to decide on whether to sell it or develop it," Horgan added. "Right now, the real estate market in Jersey City and New Jersey is pretty slow. There aren’t a lot of people lining up to build major office buildings or hotels. It shouldn’t be surprising that nothing happens in that downturn period. But if you ask, ‘Has there been a lot of interest in it?’ The answer is ‘Yes, there has.’ ".