Dear Editor:
An amendment to Hoboken’s South Waterfront Redevelopment Plan ordinance was introduced at the November 6 City Council meeting. The Plan governs public open space between Sinatra Park and Erie Lackawanna Plaza as well as construction on three blocks between 1st and 4th Streets.
The council was informed that it would be voting to reduce the development, by limiting construction on the middle block, Block B, to 650,000 gross square feet. However, by carefully sidestepping the reality of what has already been built or is currently under construction, and how this relates to the project’s maximum size, everyone at the meeting was completely mislead into thinking that the project was being decreased in size.
In truth, the southern and northern blocks in the project are already covered with buildings. On Block A, at least 1,100,000 gross square feet of office space are nearly complete. On Block C, about 660,000 gross square feet are finished and occupied at 333 River Street. The total for Blocks A and C is approximately 1,760,000 gross square feet. (I am sure by the way, that these figures are underestimates; they probably don’t include the retail space on Block A and common areas within the structures on both blocks.)
According to the Plan, and utilizing the Plan’s definition of gross square feet, the southern waterfront project is supposed to be 2,315,000 gross square feet at a maximum. Thus, approximately 555,000 gross square feet remain unbuilt.
If the Plan is amended to permit 650,000 gross square feet of development on Block B, the South Waterfront project will exceed its allowable size by about 100,000 gross square feet.
The city’s stated reasons for changing the ordinance are: to reduce the size and the real and the apparent mass of the buildings on Block B; to increase the view corridors down the numbered streets; and to increase the public open space on the ground.
Though these goals may be laudable, the Orwellian language and spin doctoring used to describe the changes in the Plan are not. Taller is not smaller. Smaller, in this case is bigger. This ain’t no reduction — the project is being increased in size.
Annette E. Illing