Development in the city is still a hot topic, whether it be a proclamation by the mayor that it’s the key to the city’s future at a morning meeting of business owners or a topic of debate at the same night’s City Council meeting.
On Wednesday, Oct. 15 at the Bayonne Chamber of Commerce’s “Meet the Mayor” breakfast, Mayor James Davis cited nine recent ribbon cuttings as proof that businesses are interested in opening in the city, and said that he hoped to lure more here by pushing projects on Broadway and at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, the former Military Ocean Terminal.
“The redevelopment of the M-O-T is what’s going to turn our entire city around,” Davis said to a group of 50 business owners and other representatives of local companies at the Villa Maria on Broadway.
Citing an influx of individuals from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Jersey City, and Hoboken, the mayor said he is working to move along projects that would attract more of these people to live, work, and shop here.
“They’re overpricing their people,” Davis said. “Those people need to go somewhere, and right now, they’re looking at Bayonne.”
That evening, at the monthly City Council meeting, there was more questioning and more criticism of the abatement approved for the Fidelco Companies to help settle a lawsuit against the city. There was also questioning of the council’s consideration of an abatement for a company already building a project at the corner of Dodge Street and Broadway.
Boraie Development deal
Between the two meetings, there was word that two possible projects may be picking up steam, as well as the announcement that a third undertaking may soon be moving forward.
Municipal Services Director Robert Wondolowski, one of the mayor’s point people on development, said that the city had entered into a redevelopment agreement with Boraie Development LLC of New Brunswick on a deal to build townhouses on a 12 1/2-acre parcel of land at The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.
“It would be residential townhouses, something similar to River Road in Weehawken,” Wondolowski said. “There would be larger brownstone townhouses on the water, and then high residential behind that, to make it a little different.”
Boraie and the city are in agreement on concept, but pricing has not yet been negotiated. The group will soon begin the selling phase of a 238-unit, 16-story project in the heart of New Brunswick.
“They have knowledge of the MOTBY base and have some innovative ideas on the types of residential units they will build there,” Davis said.
The company was previously designated as a developer for MOTBY, according to Wondolowski.
Harbor Station South
Also on the former base site, it appears the administration may be making strides in selecting a developer for The Peninsula at Bayonne, Harbor Station South.
“We’ve whittled it down to three for Peninsula at Harbor South,” Wondolowski said. “It looks like we’ll have a convention center, and pretty much all the proposals we’ve been looking at have a hotel proposal.”
Like the previous administration’s vision of the area, a destination hotel and plaza with retail shopping is being sought. A large development is also being envisioned, with as many as 50 or more stores.
“It would be like a Woodbury Commons, an outlet-oriented development with a plaza. It would be more of a destination area,” Wondolowski said. “We would have people staying there that would shop, maybe from Manhattan. We’d capture people from the Eastern Seaboard going to the Commons now.”
The administration’s plan for this area is to break ground by the spring.
Broadway and 24th Street
Plans are still progressing to bring a medical facility to the western side of Broadway from just past Barney Stock on 23rd Street to 24th Street, and west of it, by Del Monte Drive.
The development, first announced in the winter by the administration of then-Mayor Mark Smith, is still being sought by Rendina Healthcare Real Estate for St. Barnabas Health Systems.
Wondolowski said he met with representatives of the two companies working on the project, Rendina and the Connell Foley Group, for more than an hour on Oct. 15.
“We’re still in negotiations,” he said. “We’re still far out from what we can call a formal agreement.”
Rendina is not the only suitor for the location, but Wondolowski said the administration is still positive about what Rendina is saying about its proposal.
“We like the idea of having them there, creating 170 jobs, some higher-end like doctors, nurses, and techs,” Wondolowski said. “If we can get retail wrapped around the bottom of the building, have them offer a palatable lease rate, and attract anchor tenants, then we’ll have a nice little pop in the economy in that area.”
Wondolowski said the development had to be scaled back after the administration’s agreement with Barney Stock to remove them from the development project. He said he is waiting on updated information from Rendina and hopes to reintroduce the prospective development at the December meeting of the city planning board.
E-mail joepass@hudsonreporter.com.