the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, When will the Council apply Eminent Domain to buy the long-abandoned Town Garage site on Franklin Avenue?
This, in conjunction with other small fixes, such as repaving and reconfiguring the existing Hudson Street parking lot, which was never designed properly, would (at far lower cost than building a parking garage) add plenty of spaces downtown, tucked into small areas here and there. We must not build an $8+-million edifice at Hudson and Broad (and we know how it goes with change orders, etc.) that would require a huge bond and endless expensive maintenance and potentially serve as a hangout for kids at best or a site of drug dealing or other crime at worst while casting a hideous shadow (literal and figurative) over that small, cozy corner. The entire central business district is a historic neighborhood–this would wreck it.
Nothing I have read or could read from any so-called expert will convince me that adding significant numbers of cars to that corner would be anything but a disaster in traffic and injury.
The garage was always a boondoggle to help the developers. Are we going to allow Aronsohn, Pucciarelli, Hauck, and Pfund to continue to manipulate us to this extent?
The referendum to quash the garage was specific to that design–yes, technically and legally. However, many, many people who voted NO were voting NO GARAGE even if that’s not what it said on the ballot.
Council, please buy Town Garage and let’s see how it goes before putting up a monstrosity and white elephant that nobody wants. Please!!
Anybody agree? Tell the council you want Town Garage bought for parking. If the town doesn’t buy it, don’t you think a developer will? Just what we need is more apartments there. We can then change the name of Franklin Avenue to Death Row.
It’s not too late, but it’s getting there. Speak out!
Sure buy the Town Garage. Take it off the tax rolls just like they are doing with the Elks Club. SPEND,SPEND SPEND.
Buying town garage and building a parking garage that fits with the character of the village, and is not a monstrosity, would be the responsible and prudent thing to do. Town Garage is an awful eyesore, creating additional parking will bring in revenue (do the math), it will more than cover any loss in property taxes and we will finally be taking care of the parking issues that exist with the purchase and with a garage.
9:09 disagree on building any concrete elevated town wrecking polluting
Crime academy,We all Say No..can you hear us now?Pave the surface Lots management with Deaf ears walking.go visit Westfield a similar town as RIDGEWOOD Layout and types of stores and restaurants .They actually manage and pave those surface lots and paint the stall lines and provide a parking ticket Kiosk option .
Buy,buy buy. The motto of the Ridgewood Council
9:09 Did you do a study to come up with that math? How much will it cost to buy the property? How much will it cost to clean up the environmental issues? How much will your fantasy parking garage cost? How much will it generate in parking fees? Don’t forget the lost real estate tax revenue.
Buy and pave. No garage.
@9:09, that cbd is flat and easier to walk from one end to the other. Also, retail is open on Sunday’s making it much more appealing to chain businesses ( and some people). There is much more parking on side streets too, equivalent of our oak, chestnut, walnut, prospect, Dayton etc. but the streets are not as narrow…
If they haven’t sold it, the Town garage site was purchased by a group of our famed “developers” many years ago. The rumor was that the town would buy it and those guys rushed to beat the town to purchase it. They had full plans of selling it back to the town for a much higher price–and without doing the necessary environmental clean up themselves. Until that clean up is done, we shouldn’t attempt to buy or condemn it. The cost would be a LOT of money.
8:34 point is
??
@12:23. Point is? Point is you can’t just look around and say others do it so we should. Situations vary…Do what works best for Wood.
As long as there is commuter parking for non-residents because the state didn’t really do a $55 million upgrade to the train station just for Ridgewood commuters. And we don’t want to have to walk 6 blocks either.
the town garage is an environmental disaster. No one knows exactly what it will cost but preliminary costs are over $1 million
So the Town Garage is invisible to our management ..if we don’t want to deal with it it should be completely boarded up in a Box of fireproof boarding and some generic mural painted across the frontage.Its a screaming messages to visitors how decrepid RIDGEWOOD is ,which is not true,perhaps Starbucks drive through might start a donation bucket named save our neighborhood…BOX UP THAT DANGEROUS EYESORE