file photo by Boyd Loving
the fly asks are we asleep at the switch?
As resident become more focused on the Ridgewood Planning Board and Valley Hospital some businessmen have taken this opportunity to ” Fly under the Radar” with their project in the CBD.
Lets take the recent sale of the Bank of America building on Ridgewood Ave, you know the one our Governor had his rally in last week. My understanding is that the building was bought by Onyx Equities. The co-founder and managing principal of Onyx equities is John Saracno Jr. Yes folks the same Saraceno who is a member of the Chamber of Commerce Parking Garage Committee.
It would be nice for Mr Saraceno if the Village of Ridgewood taxpayers would foot the bill on a new parking garage on Hudson St. which by the way abuts his newly acquired property?
Ah, just a coincidence. Yes, the same Saraceno who wants to build a large multiple unit apartment building at the old Selfons site, who co-sponsored our Governor rally, Who gave a large contribution to Mayor Paul Aronsohn re-election.
To be fair Mr. Saraceno has contributed his time and effort for some worth while project but one starts to wounder. To what end.
Don’t forget his position on the library board to which Aronsohn has been council liaison. This is another scary billionaire who is increasingly using his influence.
Yes, horrible isn’t it that someone wants to improve the parking situation in Ridgewood. Parking has been problematic in town for 100 years and is one of the largest difficulties for businesses in the CBD (coupled with the parking Nazis.) I recently moved to Summit NJ, and this town is THRIVING. One of the main differences? Parking. Everywhere. Find a spot, park for hours or all day, pay via your Parkmobile app on your smartphone. But we would prefer to have constant parking problems in town so we can still view the beauty of the old garage on Franklin Avenue. Ridgewood is dying. Summit knows how to run a town.
Yes, horrible isn’t it that someone wants to improve the parking situation in Ridgewood so he can profit on the real estate that he just bought. If you just moved to Summit why are you reading the Ridgewood Blog. Doesn’t Summit have it own blog ?
Profit is not the issue , its Risk ,if the developer wants to put up the money , he or she should be able to make money what I and many readers oppose is asking for tax payer financing while the developer makes all the profits
Another thing Summit has over Ridgewood is a one-seat ride to Manhattan.
Transferring at SEC has become a nightmare in the AM, and even if it goes smoothly, changing trains is a drag.
Thanks Christie for killing ARC. I guess not enough of his personal friends had much to gain from it.
To say that residents are “asleep at the switch” is probably too harsh an assessment. The Village is being bombarded by special interests that each have their pet construction project. Along with each project is a set of residents that have a special interest in seeing that particular project shot down. See the west siders that don’t want apartments on the Ken Smith site not caring one way or another about Valley or the CRR who probably don’t care too much about where the parking garage goes.
What the Village needs and obviously lacks is vision by our elected officials. But, alas, Aronsohn, Pucciarelli and Hauck all have their own pet project that they ran for office to get done. If things go wrong from here, history will show that this Council missed a great opportunity to craft a vision for the Village in the 21st century. We do need parking and a few housing units. The hospital does need to modernize. But since each project is being championed by individual or entity that wants the biggest possible building, there’s no way for everyone to get their way without changing life in Ridgewood for the worse.