Bergen County’s suburbs embrace a touch of the city
NOVEMBER 16, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2014, 12:48 AM
BY JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Robert Weiner, co-owner of the Bruce the Bed King mattress and furniture store on Hackensack’s Main Street, last week took his 96-year-old father to see a first in the 60 years since his family opened its store — a 222-unit apartment building rising on State Street, a block from downtown.
That project and two others that will put an additional 700 apartments on Main Street are the result of zoning revisions that Hackensack put in place two years ago and the first signs of a policy shift that could produce the biggest transformation of North Jersey’s downtowns since the arrival of the malls pulled shoppers away from town centers in the 1960s and 1970s.
A growing number of North Jersey municipalities, like Hackensack, believe that adding rental apartments in their downtowns is the key to revitalizing their Main Streets. Not everyone, though, is convinced that downtowns and residential apartments are a perfect fit.
North Jersey, and particularly Bergen County, was an example of suburban prosperity in the latter part of the 20th century, typified by single-family homes and shopping centers along highways. But now North Jersey’s suburbs are responding to a 21st-century sensibility of millennials — those between the ages of 18 and 33 — who want to live in urban environments such as Hoboken or Brooklyn, as well as aging suburbanites who want to downsize without leaving their hometowns.
Demand for rental apartments, especially near train stations, is driving the change. “People want to live in places where they have that downtown, where they can live close to things that they’re going to eat and things that they’re going to buy, and the market is following,” said Maggie Peters, director of the Bergen County Economic Development Corp. Developers, she said, have known this already “and now municipalities are starting to react.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen-county-s-suburbs-embrace-a-touch-of-the-city-1.1134517
just say ‘no’ to apartments.
Let the NYC people move back to manhattan.
My favorite part of the article is
“Bruce Meisel, who is developing the former Valley Ford car dealership site in Westwood as a mixed-use project with 14 apartments above retail stores, said residential projects should fit the character of the downtown.
Meisel, who owns 20 properties in Westwood and is one of the leading downtown landlords, said he doesn’t believe a high-density apartment building is right for Westwood. “Just like Westwood’s stores are boutiques, the residential developments in Westwood are boutique in nature,” said Meisel.”
I wish we had landlords like this in Ridgewood.
Brilliant…..just say no.
No progress…
No future….
No business district…
Means no property value
Means schools crapper then they are now
Means you house has no value….
Get out of your little world that you like to call a village and wake up and smell the future….it’s on your doorstep….and it’s not going away.
#3 Small movement in the right direction rather than a giant leap off a cliff – yes, that might be brilliant, or at least not stupid.
The full article (which I suggest you read) includes
“Ridgewood’s downtown, which during the worst years of the recession had dozens of vacant stores, is one of the most successful in North Jersey. The occupancy rate for storefronts along Ridgewood Avenue, the downtown’s main thoroughfare, is over 90 percent, according to the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce, and empty stores tend to be re-leased quickly.”
Right #4 The Chamber of Commerce can’t have it both ways.
A trend is not one size fits all. It does not fit Ridgewood. If done Ridgewood will no longer be as desireable. No small town uncongested community feel. Do you realize NJ is the most congested state in the nation.
Let’s save the town and keep it from Embracing a TOUCH OF THE CITY. That’s like a touch of the flu. You have it or you don’t.
A touch of the flu. Good one #6. How about A little pregnant or a touch of the clap.
I wanted to be in good taste, sir!
How about a unique idea. IF you want a city..MOVE THERE.
The success and ‘draw’ of this place is a smaller town VILLAGE atmosphere, located close ENOUGH to the city for those who need to be there, but far enough away to not have the negative things that come along with large amounts of people crammed into living a foot from each other .
I could see allowing a current store size building to put one living unit upstairs (like the old shopkeeper living above his store)
But to turn a nice place into Hackensack or Montclair..forget it.
PS. You are allowing speculators who bought property to have a winning lottery ticket if the change in zoning is allowed
Try Madam #8.
Knudsen noted that she put faith in Brancheau’s figure, saying that “if our planner put that number out there, he must have had some basis for that number.”
“I think that what Blais said was [that figure applies] ‘if every single property that could be developed was developed,’ but then he also talked for 10 minutes about the practical issues that would preclude that from happening,” Simoncini said. “I think he specifically said that theoretically that that could happen, but practically it could not.”
AND YOU BELIEVE HIM ?
Simoncini definitely wrote #3 What a joke
Number 9 is correct . Or a Hoboken. New Jersey is the densest state in the country and I mean dense more than one sense.
So why should Ridgewood join the crowd and become a city. Tell the developers to go to hell. The greedy bastards.