Bayonne [Archive] - Wired New York Forum

JCDJ

September 12th, 2003, 01:09 PM

I don't know why everyone else . . . I don't know why I make fun of Bayonne, it's got a lot of good stuff. But it's so easy to do.

Someone once said people call it the "butt-hole of Hudson County, there's only one way in and out". There is the Staten Island Bridge (I think that's where it leads) and the Bayonne Bridge, but who ever goes through there unless they're visiting friends or family?

Bayonne is different than most other places in the area, it has one building considered a skyscraper on skyscrapers.com (11 stories or higher. It has a large Industrial sector (but most of it seems to be the clean industry brought about in the 70s) It has a seaport. It doesn't have any places like malls or Movie theatres, (however it does have some strip malls and a bowling place). It's almost like an urban suburb. When the Mayor of Bayonne wanted the MTVA antenna in Bayonne without an observation deck, that didn't help the city's reputation. Especially because it'll be defunct as an antenna once the new WTC plan is complete. Once that happens the former antenna will just be a giant 2,000 foot eyesore on some unkown peninsula on the edge of Bayonne, but that's a different topic. Other than houses of worship, I'm not aware of any architecture that's different than any other places.

However, Bayonne has its perks. It has multiple "main streets" lined withe healthy buisinesses run by people with pride in their businesses and with integrety. There are good playgrounds and parks (but many are small). I think it has a long park along it's western waterfront. The people who I know who are from Bayonne are among the nicest people I know. In fact I don't know one person from Bayonne who's mean or who'd be undesirable to meet. The houses look nice too.

I hope there're other people here who can present some more great things about Bayonne. Also, sorry about the large paragraph of Bayonne's downsides, but I guess those're the reasons.

I'll probably post some pictures of Bayonne later today.

TLOZ Link5

September 12th, 2003, 02:19 PM

Hysterical Blindness. Good movie.

JCDJ

September 13th, 2003, 12:01 AM

Yaay! It works! I tried uploading Newark pictures and it didn't work, but these do, so that's great!! :D :o

Note: I was wrong, I think, tell me if it works, and if just my computer is messed up. Sorry for the waste of space, and inconvenient page changes if there aren't any pictures showing.

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0002.JPG

A medical office.

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0003.jpg

It reads " The Peninsula of Business and Technology"

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0004.jpg

A church, I should've found out the name.

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0007.jpg

Bayonne Municipal Building

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0008.jpg

St. Peter & Paul Church

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0013.jpg

Bayonne Municipal Building from the front

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0015.jpg

Bayonne High School, the sign reads "Designated one of New Jersey's Outstanding Public High Schools"

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0016.jpg

Elizabeth Seaport (or Newark) on Bayonne's Western Waterfront

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0017.jpg

I wonder what all that sand is for

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0018.jpg

Newark's skyline on the left also from Bayonne's West side (it's not as far as it looks) and some bridge on the right. The Bayonne Bridge is the longest steel bridge in the world (or something). I guess it's even longer than the one pictured here.

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0019.jpg

Just so you know how long it is.

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0021.jpg

Now that's a good picture of the seaport, (and some more of the mysterious sand)

:?:

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0022.jpg

I wonder how nicer this picture would look with a blue sky, or earlier in the day. . . or if Elizabeth (http://skyscrapers.com/re/en/wm/ci/101400/) had a skyline to show for its commerce (where'd that come from?)

http://creatorscafe.0catch.com/Pictures/pics2/TECH0023.jpg

town houses on the water's edge, some tall red thing, what looks like tall lights, the ever famous Bayonne Bridge in the far back ground. And, in front, though it may be hard to see, the people on the penisula seem to be working together to clean litter and garbage from the penisula or the water.

One of the pictures I was most excited about posting was two waterfront high rise condos I saw. However, I either didn't take it, or the camera deleted it (do I sound like a ditz or what). This changes Bayonne's High-rise count from one, to 3 or more . . .

Kris

November 16th, 2004, 07:31 AM

November 16, 2004

Tom Cruise and Some Martians Take a Liking to Bayonne

By LEWIS BEALE

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/16/arts/bayon.jpg
Steven Spielberg and, in background, Tom Cruise at work on "The War of the Worlds."

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/16/arts/cruise.jpg
Marie Folger at her Bayonne coffee shop with her Tom Cruise photo.

BAYONNE, N.J., Nov. 12 - Luckily for Marie Folger, there is no Starbucks in town. So one day last month, when Tom Cruise and his entourage were looking for some espresso with steamed milk, a couple of local police officers directed them to Chez Marie, the cozy coffee shop and cafe run by Ms. Folger on East 22nd Street here.

"I had taken the day off, and my husband was in the store," said Ms. Folger, an outgoing 51-year-old. "He called me and said: 'You better get your butt down here, because Tom Cruise is here. I'm steaming his milk right now, but I'm taking a looong time.' "

Mr. Cruise was in Bayonne checking out the ambience before beginning work on Steven Spielberg's $200 million adaptation of "The War of the Worlds," H. G. Wells's science-fiction classic about a Martian invasion. Work on the movie, due out from Paramount next summer, has been in progress here and in Newark since the beginning of the month. The production will be filming in Bayonne for only about a week, but crews have been in town since September, scouting locations and building sets. More than anything, however, the mere presence of such a Hollywood blockbuster in a city long thought of as one of New Jersey's backwaters attests to Bayonne's revitalized image and its currently hot status as a filmmaking center.

Bayonne? Yes, the town across New York Harbor known primarily for its oil refineries and industrial pallor. These days, though, this city of 62,000 boasts an abundance of residential areas, beautiful waterside parks, a terminal for cruise ships and one of the largest sound stages on the East Coast.

"Most people don't know Bayonne," Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr. said. "There are no refineries today. It's mostly one- and two-family homes."

It's also the location of the Military Ocean Terminal, an Army base abandoned in 1995. Since 2000, two large warehouses on the base, each boasting 120,000 square feet of space, have been used as film production centers.

Only five minutes from the New Jersey Turnpike, 15 minutes from Newark Liberty International Airport and Midtown, and without the parking or security problems of its in-city brethren, the terminal has quickly become a favorite of film companies. In the past four years it has housed 11 major films and television shows, including "A Beautiful Mind," "Far From Heaven" and the HBO series "Oz." In addition to "The War of the Worlds," the warehouses are currently home to Sidney Lumet's latest film, the independent feature "Find Me Guilty," a mob drama starring Vin Diesel and Peter Dinklage.

"The size and expansiveness" of the terminal are what make it so attractive, said Ray Samitez, construction coordinator on the Spielberg film.

Jonathan Filley, New York production manager for "The War of the Worlds,'' added: "I know many people who have filmed there over the years. It's a great resource."

It will not, however, be the location of the apocalyptic scenes of the battle between the earthlings and the Martians; those will be created at George Lucas's special-effects workshop, Industrial Light and Magic, in California. (The 1953 screen version won an Oscar for special effects.)

"The War of the Worlds" is also here because its screenwriter, David Koepp, decided he "very much wanted to set the remake in a working-class environment - I felt it would be really interesting." That led Mr. Koepp to the Ironbound, the colorful Portuguese-Brazilian area of Newark, which, with its row houses and lively street life, "had a sort of rusting, industrial America look."

Newark, in turn, led to a few Bayonne locations, particularly First Street and Kennedy Boulevard, a tidy block of immaculate row houses in the shadow of the spectacularly arching Bayonne Bridge. It is here that a World War II veteran and retired government worker named Henry Sanchez opened his door one day in September to a man who said: "Hello, my name is Steven Spielberg. Do you mind if I come in and look around?"

"He said they were walking around looking at different homes, deciding whether they wanted to shoot in this area," Mr. Sanchez said. "He was with an entourage of about 20 people. I'd never seen them before, and I've never seen them since."

Mr. Spielberg ("Jurassic Park,'' "A.I.,'' "Minority Report''), who is once again on familiar futuristic turf with "The War of the Worlds,'' must have liked what he saw, because the Sanchez home will be the cinematic residence of Tom Cruise's character. For the past week or so, construction crews have been in the home altering it to fit the production designer's vision (fake walls have been erected in the living room, and all the above-ground swimming pools on the block have been removed and put in storage), while out at the terminal, exact reproductions of Mr. Sanchez's redesigned interiors have been constructed. Not that the workers on this closed and very hush-hush set have apprised him of what's going on.

"They're very secretive," Mr. Sanchez said. "They come and do their work, and when I asked when they're going to start shooting, they said, 'We don't know.' They're worse than top-secret agents. But they're very nice and courteous."

It's no secret, however, that Bayonne residents almost unanimously embrace the filmmaking, both for its economic benefits and for the way in which it will, they hope, put the city in a better light. Although one restaurant owner who has done business with film companies in the past said the economic impact was "really not that huge, it's less than 1 percent of my business," Marie Folger said that if "The War of the Worlds" succeeded in bringing "one more person into my shop, then it's worth it."

It may be worth more than that. Although no one has hard and fast numbers, the film's stage manager, Jeremiah Sellitti, estimated that the production was spending as much as $4,000 a week in petty cash alone (for food, hardware, lumber), a figure that does not include big-ticket items like locally contracted plumbing, heating and electricity.

But the bottom line is image. Bayonne actually does have a film history, although not an extensive one. The Centaur Film Company, one of the industry's first independents, was based here in the early 1900's. (It eventually became part of Universal Studios.) Sandra Dee was born in Bayonne. And the improbable tale of Chuck (The Bayonne Bleeder) Wepner, the valiant underdog who lasted into the 15th round against Muhammad Ali in a 1975 title fight, became the basis for "Rocky."

That's all history, however. Nowadays, the locals are hoping the more films that get made in Bayonne, the more the downtrodden image of the city will turn around. They're also hoping that the terminal will eventually be turned into a full-service production center with editing rooms and the like, thereby making it even more attractive to the industry. (There is a proposed mixed-use redevelopment plan for the entire site, which includes such a center.) And even though Mr. Filley, the movie's production manager, said that "you won't change a town's image by making a film there," Bayonne residents tend to feel otherwise.

"It's just something positive," Ms. Folger said. "You're always hearing the negative. That's what I said to Tom Cruise when he was leaving: 'We get a bad rap here. This is a nice town.' "

" 'This is a really nice town,' " Ms. Folger said Mr. Cruise responded.

"I think," she added, "the filmmaking has given us a positive look."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

JCMAN320

December 14th, 2006, 03:33 AM

'Bayonne Crossing' shopping center gets plan board approval

Thursday, December 14, 2006
By GREG HANLON
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Bayonne Planning Board has voted unanimously to approve the final site plan for the 10-building, 358,418-square-foot shopping center proposed for a 29-acre tract of land east of Route 440 between New Hook Road and East 22nd Street.

With the site plan approved, the project's only remaining hurdle is for the state Department of Environmental Protection to approve a plan for environmental cleanup - or remediation - to remove underground petroleum contaminants from the site.

Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr., who also serves as a commissioner on the Planning Board, said that the shopping center - dubbed "Bayonne Crossing" - "will attract some well-known, big-box stores to our community, and will add more vitality to the local economy."

The project is expected to generate approximately 800 jobs, $1.2 million in tax revenue, and between $3 and 4 million in Urban Enterprise Zone sales tax proceeds, a total that would double the amount of UEZ funding the city currently takes in, according to Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Development Corporation.

O'Connor also credited the project with facilitating the cleanup of a contaminated tract of land on which the Standard Oil company - now ExxonMobil - had long operated an oil terminal and refinery.

"Ultimately, on a site that was destined to be vacant land for generations to come, this project will generate jobs and revenue, and will precipitate further development in the surrounding area," O'Connor said.

Site work is expected to begin in the spring.

"By the fall of 2007, we want to be able to open a representative sample of stores," said Eric Alterman, of Cameron Bayonne, LLC, the New York-based developer of the site.

ablarc

December 14th, 2006, 07:46 AM

The Bayonne Planning Board has voted unanimously to approve the final site plan for the 10-building, 358,418-square-foot shopping center proposed for a 29-acre tract of land east of Route 440...
10 buildings, 29 acres.

One building per 2.9 acres.

Parking lots.

TimmyG

February 16th, 2007, 10:44 AM

Taking on the tear-down trend
Friday, February 16, 2007 By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Bayonne's city administration is drafting a new law aimed at rescuing its classic Victorian-style homes - and other one-families - from developers looking to replace them with multi-family construction.
"We're trying to maintain the character of our community, such as those neighborhoods with houses on big lots where, given the value of the property, a lot of developers are buying the land, tearing down the existing homes and building two-family homes on the lot," Mayor Joseph V. Doria said.
To make it harder for developers to swing the wrecking ball, Doria said he's asked City Law Director John Coffey II and City Planner John Fussa, in concert with the city Historic Preservation Commission, to draft an ordinance "that will set up a procedure to review demolition permits" for these types of projects.
"We've definitely seen accelerating trends involving tear-downs of residential structures on one lot, so we're losing a lot of the city's older housing stock to multi-family development," Fussa said. "And that can affect the quality of life in those neighborhoods, so there's been increasing concern and it's emerging as an issue as the city considers updating its master plan."
As a possible legislative strategy to deal with it, Fussa said the city is exploring any and all of four possible zoning approaches.
The city may look to impose what Fussa called a "cooling off" period on demolition jobs based on factors "that go beyond health and safety issues" through an "enhanced level of review" by the city engineer and planner, and possibly, by the city's historic preservation and environmental experts.
Fussa said the city would also be looking at possible amendments to the current residential zoning code for R-1 (one-family) and R-2 (two-family) uses to see whether the code is providing built-in "incentives" for tearing down structures by allowing increased density in certain areas.
"We want to see if these demolitions are being done on appropriate sites," he said.
Another strategy being eyed, Fussa said, is possibly requiring a property owner or developer to give the city a more detailed justification for taking down an old home "and what the site would yield as a consequence of that."
And, Fussa said, the city may require a property owner to post a performance bond for a demolition job that would ensure that sufficient funding is allocated for such safeguards as fencing, landscaping, utility improvements and sidewalks.
At this point, "we're still in the research phase" of putting together the ordinance, Fussa said.
He said that suburban communities such as Montclair, Westfield, Metuchen and Long Hill Township have been grappling with zoning issues involving older homes on larger lots, and Bayonne would survey how they've dealt with that.

TimmyG

April 2nd, 2007, 10:02 AM

Green light for condo project
Monday, April 02, 2007 By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A downsized "Waterford at Bayonne" received a green light from the Bayonne Planning Board Wednesday night.
Only board member Alice K. Lotosky dissented, saying the condo project was too big for the downtown neighborhood - even after the developer scaled down the development at the southern end of Kennedy Boulevard from 144 to 84 units due to market conditions.
"To me it shows a lack of confidence by the developer that they're going to sell out the units," Lotosky said.
After hearing testimony from Jason Kaplan, president of The Kaplan Companies of Highland Park, and his experts, the board voted 8-1 to okay the site plan for 144 units even though the current plan is to build 84 units.
Kaplan and his attorney, Robert Cavanaugh, told the board the project would proceed in two phases: the first 48 units will be built in the site's northern section, closest to West Third Street, and the next 36 units will rise in the area closest to West Second Street. No construction timetable was given. The site will accommodate 104 parking spaces which - with the board's consent - will be slightly undersized.
"The Phase 1 area is clean (environmentally) but remediation needs to be done in the Phase 2 section because there's still some oil spilled from the prior owner," Cavanaugh said.
A traffic expert's study paid for by Kaplan found no justification for a traffic signal proposed for Kennedy Boulevard and West Second Street. The Hudson County Planning Board isn't contesting that finding, City Planner John Fussa said. There will be driveway access to the site via Second and Third streets, he said.
Kaplan's plans call for 72 two-bedroom units, eight one-bedrooms and four three-bedrooms.
After it's built, Waterford at Bayonne should generate $520,000 in annual municipal and school tax revenues, Cavanaugh said.

JCMAN320

April 2nd, 2007, 12:38 PM

Group mulls landmark status for lighthouse

Monday, April 02, 2007

The Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission is reaching out to the U.S. Coast Guard to get a briefing in support of possibly designating the Robbins Reef Lighthouse off the Bayonne coastline for local landmark status.

The now-automated beacon, also known as the "Katie Walker" light for one of its former keepers, has already been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The existing lighthouse has been flashing its warning light since 1883 and has been automated since 1966.

Commission spokesman Joseph Ryan said members at last Tuesday's meeting also planned to contact the city's Master Plan Steering Committee to press for amendments to the Master Plan that would provide for additional protection of the city's older Victorian-style homes.

In other business, the commission welcomed new member, Priscilla Ege - a partner with Alice K. Lotosky in PealCollection, which offers historic tours - as the replacement for Eric Lobel, who resigned last month after moving to New York. Ege will serve a five-year term.

RONALD LEIR

Good to see Bayonne and Jersey City are both trying to protect the great venerable Victorian homes that grace both cities.

JCMAN320

April 2nd, 2007, 12:53 PM

BLRA approves builder's loan request

Monday, April 02, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The developer of a highway shopping center on Bayonne's East Side may be tapping a state fund to help pay for part of the project's utility work.

The Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority - which has control over the 29-acre redevelopment site on the east side of Route 440 between New Hook Road and East 22nd Street - voted last Thursday to apply to the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust for a loan of more than $19 million for a stormwater management system for the Bayonne Crossing "power" center.

But BLRA Executive Director Nancy Kist said the authority wouldn't be on the hook to repay the loan.

"If the NJEIT were to grant the loan request, Cameron Bayonne LLC (the shopping center developer) would be responsible for paying the loan and interest, as well as any costs associated with the loan," Kist said.

Kist said the loan would provide nearly $6 million to prepare the site, around $4 million to install the system and about $8 million for environmental controls. An additional $800,000 would go for administrative costs and about $1.7 million is built in for contingencies by state mandate, according to Cameron associate Eric Alderman.

"We're hopeful of getting this money later this spring and, 60 days after that, we expect to commence active remediation, site preparation and then actual construction for a 2008 opening," Alderman added.

Alderman estimated that between $30 and $40 million of the overall $100 to $125 million estimated development cost would go for environmental remediation and/or environmental-related construction. ExxonMobil has accepted the bulk of the responsibility for cleaning up the underground contaminants on the site, Alderman said.

Cameron has signed leases with "several tenants," Alderman said, but declined to name them, except to say they are national retailers.

City officials have projected the project will generate construction jobs, 800 permanent jobs, $1.2 million in taxes and $4 million in Urban Enterprise Zone sales tax proceeds.

JCMAN320

June 23rd, 2007, 09:59 PM

Bayonne votes historic status for lighthouse

Saturday, June 23, 2007
By N. CLARK JUDD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

While Wednesday's Bayonne City Council meeting was mostly focused on the future, council members began the evening with a link to the past.

Following up on an April decision by the Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission, the council voted unanimously to designate the Robbins Reef Lighthouse - already on the National Register of Historic Places - a historic landmark.

"This is a welcome addition to the history of Bayonne," Council President Vincent Lo Re said before casting the final vote.

For another part of Bayonne's maritime past, the council approved modifications to the transportation plan for the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor that were suggested by the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority.

BLRA transportation planner Sue Mack explained that the modifications would allow a developer to build one fewer city block in the Peninsula's loft district than the plan currently specifies. With one fewer block, Mack explained, the street configuration would allow for larger blocks and the preservation of some of the historic buildings on the site.

For the third time in 10 years, the council authorized spending on engineering work as part of a build-up to fixing the roof of the public library. Councilman Anthony Chiappone suggested looking into the availability of grant money to make the library roof a solar roof, like the one at Bayonne High School.

Punzie

June 23rd, 2007, 11:30 PM

Google Map - Robbins Reef Lighthouse (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.6574+-74.0656+%28Robbins+Reef+Lighthouse%29&hl=en&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=40.657463,-74.065704&spn=0.114077,0.233459&z=12&iwloc=addr)

http://www.lighthousefriends.com/robbinsreef2.jpg

Source:
http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=582

JCMAN320

July 1st, 2007, 07:39 AM

Call to halt MOT's rebirth

Saturday, June 30, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A local dock workers group wants the federal government to order a stop to all redevelopment work at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, alleging the city violated the terms of the October 2001 agreement that transferred the former Military Ocean Terminal to the city.

The group, the "Working Waterfront Committee" of Bayonne Local 1588, International Longshoremen's Association, says the city - through the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority - reneged on a plan to build a container port which, it says, could have generated enough jobs to replace the 2,000 lost when the MOT closed in 1999.

In a June 18 letter to U.S. Assistant Army Secretary Keith Eastin, the WWC, under the signatures of Local 1588 members Robert Dickey and Angelo Mack, asked the Army, as the federal agency that last occupied the MOT, to "immediately insist that the BLRA suspend all redevelopment activity until a full investigation of (BLRA) actions is made and until (the original plan for the former base) is firmly back on course."

Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr. called the allegations "baseless and factually deficient" and labeled the committee action "self-serving, inaccurate and misguided," and BLRA Executive Director Nancy Kist said the committee was making "unsupported accusations and insinuations of fraud to make their pitch for a container port."

But local attorney Patrick Conaghan, who based his unsuccessful mayoral campaign last year on a pitch for a container port at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, as the area is now known, said the committee was "right on the money."

"The ILA position is correct - a container port would be in the best interests of Bayonne," he said.

Army officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The letter says that in 2003 the BLRA asked for container port proposals for the area it designated as the Maritime District at the Peninsula from prospective operators, and subsequently got nine proposals, but ended up shelving them and changing its redevelopment plan to exclude a container port.

Kist said the BLRA has honored its commitment to the feds to stimulate job growth at the former base.

"As of October 2006, when our most recent tabulation was done, 900 jobs have been created from the cruise business, the drydock and our other tenants," she said.

As for the container port, Kist said the BLRA did opt to place restrictions on the type of maritime uses that could be placed in the Maritime District - but for good reason.

"You couldn't have a full-blown container port," Kist said.

She cited the lack of a 50-foot channel, reinforced piers and the off-site infrastructure improvements - such as a widened Route 440 and upgrade NJ Turnpike 14A Interchange - that she said would be needed to support the operation.

And, Kist said, even if the BLRA did endorse a container port, "it would take five years to make it happen - it's not just going to pop up."

JCMAN320

July 24th, 2007, 09:48 PM

U.S. Army to decide Bayonne's fiscal fate

Monday, July 23, 2007
By N. CLARK JUDD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The state could move to play a bigger role in how Bayonne handles its finances if the U.S. Army doesn't agree that "Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor," a one-time military terminal, is environmentally ready for residential housing, officials said.

The issue has to do with $23 million the city had been counting on receiving from the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority to close a gap in its budget year that ended June 30.

The BLRA, the agency overseeing development at the terminal, had been expecting to receive the money from Bayonne Bay Developers LLC and Trammel Crow Residential, the designated developers for the site.

But the developers haven't forked over the money, according to the city's finance administrator, Terrence Malloy.

The developers are waiting for the U.S. Army to sign off on a ruling by the state's Department of Environmental Protection that found that parts of the Peninsula originally deemed safe enough only for industrial use are suitable for residential construction as well, Malloy said.

The Army is the "responsible party" for polluting the site, officials said. As the responsible party, the Army could be liable if residents on the property were to become ill, officials said.

The deadline for reports to the state for fiscal year 2007, which ended June 30, is Aug. 10.

If the money comes in before Aug. 10, the city would report a balanced budget to the state, Malloy said.

But a delay beyond Aug. 10 raises several possibilities, according to Malloy.

State officials could let Bayonne carry over a deficit for the second year in a row, Malloy explained. Or, he said, "The state could oversee any hiring within the city, any promotion within the city, essentially oversight on the expenditures within the community.

"A lot of the things the state may very well look at we're right now in the process of doing," Malloy added, referring to a hiring freeze and a study that could result in layoffs later this summer.

Tom Lederle, the U.S. Army branch chief responsible for overseeing the Peninsula, said the Army anticipates reaching a conclusion on the state's ruling "in the near future" - "weeks, not months." A spokesman for the state's Department of Community Affairs, declined to comment until DCA receives Bayonne's financial statements.

For the past few years, the city and the BLRA have engaged in swapping money. The city would float bonds to raise money for capital improvements at the terminal, and the BLRA would return the equivalent amount to the city from fees paid by the developers.

The arrangement has been advantageous to the city since the cash-strapped municipality can't use money raised from selling bonds to pay day-to-day expenses.

Last year, the city wound up with a $25 million deficit after developer D.R. Horton pulled out of a partnership at the Peninsula with Trammel Crow Residential and the BLRA couldn't hold up its end of the deal until after the fiscal year ended. The state allowed the city to carry over the deficit into 2007, and eventually the BLRA found another developer.

TimmyG

August 16th, 2007, 09:39 AM

Bayonne: Light Rail hikes values
Thursday, August 16, 2007 By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

NJ Transit's expansion of its Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System to its southernmost point - Eighth Street in Bayonne - figures to be an engine for stimulating additional economic growth in the area, real estate and transit analysts say.
"Anytime there's public transportation available, it's a plus for the city," said Jack Pineiro, a co-owner of Prudential McGeehan and Pineiro Realtors since 1982. "The Light Rail has definitely made an impact on property values."
NJ Transit will be taking bids later this month for construction of the mile-long extension, from the 22nd Street Station to Eighth Street, and the new station. Work on the project is expected to begin next spring and finish sometime in 2009 at a cost projected at $89 million.
Two businesses - a tire repair shop and a fast-food place - operate on the future station site and will have to relocate when NJ Transit acquires the properties from their landlord. But future residents of an adjacent tract once occupied by Pagano's IGA supermarket that's now targeted for a 74-unit apartment cluster should benefit from close access to the rail line.
And there may be yet another station in mind to service other prospective developments in Bayonne's Bergen Point section.
Jason Kaplan, president of the Kaplan Companies, which is building an 84-unit condominium complex at the southern end of Kennedy Boulevard, said he's "had some preliminary talks with NJ Transit" about possibly extending the line southward and that "while there's no money appropriated for that yet, they didn't seem opposed to the concept."
Martin Robins, a senior policy fellow for Rutgers University's Voorhees Transportation Center who helped plan for the Light Rail when he was with NJ Transit's waterfront transportation office, said that in Hudson County, where the Light Rail track goes, new housing typically follows.
"That's what we've been documenting all along the length of the Light Rail," Robins said. "We've been looking at a half dozen locations, from 49th Street in North Bergen, all the way into Bayonne, and we've found very substantial evidence of economic development - usually housing - following the Light Rail line," he said.
For example, Robins said, the Light Rail stop at Ninth Street on Hoboken's west side had been a desolate area, but now "townhouses and small apartment buildings of five and six stories are going up all around there," with the rail station "integrated into the neighborhood."
At 22nd Street and Avenue E in Bayonne, for example, a developer has paid $1.2 million for an 88-by 114-foot lot with a tavern on it with plans to build multifamily housing there. And just across Route 440 from the 34th Street Station sits the former Military Ocean Terminal, where hundreds of new apartments are slated for construction.
With the creation of new zoning districts, such as Transit Development Overlay, "Bayonne is preparing itself, probably as well as any city I know of, for these economic changes, and Eighth Street will be another element of that," Robins said.

JCMAN320

September 20th, 2007, 05:50 PM

Car terminal likely in P.A. deal

Thursday, September 20, 2007
By JOE MALINCONICO
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

After 10 years of trying to buy land on the former Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has reached an agreement with city officials.

But the tentative $50 million deal for about 126 acres, which is scheduled for approval today, comes with a critical provision - the Port Authority cannot use the land to build a new cargo container terminal.

Officials say the Port Authority, which owns about 3,000 acres in and around the harbor, most likely will put a terminal for handling car shipments on the site.

Statistics for the first half of 2007 show the Port of New York and New Jersey is booming, whether measured by car shipments (an increase of 8.7 percent compared to 2006) or cargo containers (up 7.7 percent over 2006).

That restriction against building a container port - included at Bayonne's insistence - has riled longshoremen who say a container terminal would produce more and better paying jobs than would other port operations. It has also drawn criticism from some port interest groups who see the old military base as the ideal location to handle large shipments of cargo.

"I feel very betrayed that our politicians are not working along with our local to generate quality jobs," said Anthony Falcicchio, president of Bayonne Local 1588, International Longshoreman's Association. "We are losing work to areas like Virginia and Georgia. I can't figure it out.

"The Ontario (Canada) Teachers Pension Fund is investing in our industry (by acquiring Global Terminal and another container facility in Staten Island) so if people from outside our area can see an opportunity for profit, why can't our own city?"

Instead, Falcicchio said, Bayonne seems focused on encouraging development of "luxury housing" at the former MOT and a nearby private golf course for millionaires.

"These are intended for people outside the area - not Bayonne residents," he said.

Bayonne officials say the noise and traffic from a container port would interfere with the city's plans to develop housing and commercial space on the peninsula that juts into New York Harbor. Moreover, they argue, the area could not handle the heavy truck traffic that a container terminal would generate.

"If you've tried to get in or out of Bayonne at rush hour, you know it's a disaster," said Nancy Kist, executive director of the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority. "That's now, without any new development."

Bayonne's contracts with two developers who are planning to build homes on other portions of the 430-acre peninsula include commitments from the city to exclude a container terminal from the site.

"It's obvious why Bayonne has made that stipulation," said Tom Wright, executive director of the Regional Plan Association, an independent planning group. "As long as the Port Authority still feels the site has value, then it sounds like a good compromise."

The Port Authority's board is scheduled to vote on the purchase at its meeting this afternoon, while Bayonne's redevelopment board will vote in the evening.

Jersey Journal staff writer Ronald Leir contributed to this report.

JCexpert558

September 21st, 2007, 09:37 PM

As many time as Ive been to Bayonne I had never noticed the seaport.

JCMAN320

September 22nd, 2007, 12:04 AM

It's Port Jersey it's in Jersey City. The Peninsula is Bayonne next to 34th st Lightrail

JCMAN320

October 5th, 2007, 03:40 AM

Car terminal deal tripped by law

Friday, October 05, 2007
By N. CLARK JUDD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Just as the deal for a car import terminal in Bayonne rolled into the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority's plans, it will have to roll right out of them again, city officials confirmed yesterday.

City Council President Vincent Lo Re Jr., who is also a BLRA commissioner, admitted the BLRA was not in compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act when it gave notice of the special Sept. 20 meeting where the $50 million deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was approved.

"I've been informed by legal counsel that there was a technical defect in the legal notice of the Open Public Meetings Act, and I'm considering all my options to make sure that the city receives the best offer for the maritime district," Lo Re said.

The admission appears to come as the result of legal pressure from Councilman Anthony Chiappone and Local 1588 of the International Longshoremen's Association.

Chiappone and the ILA's general counsel, Louis Nikolaidis, of New York-based Lewis, Clifton & Nikolaidis, P.C., sent separate letters to the BLRA stating that the meeting failed to comply with state public notice requirements for public meetings.

ILA officials and others claim that the BLRA jumped at the Port Authority offer and passed up more lucrative deals that would have also brought Bayonne more jobs. Worldwide Group, a port operator, bettered the Port Authority offer by $25 million.

City Law Director John Coffey II admitted that Chiappone and the ILA are correct, because the BLRA only placed a legal notice about the meeting in The Jersey Journal. By law, the legal notice should have been placed in more than one newspaper.

The Port Authority deal has sparked so much controversy that Chiappone has taken the first steps to do away with the BLRA.

Chiappone says he is still pushing for the BLRA's demise and is demanding Coffey answer other legal questions about the contract. Coffey is also the BLRA's general counsel.

"This type of violation of the law is just one more reason why the BLRA should be dissolved," Chiappone said. But, he added, if the BLRA gave the council veto power over money decisions, he would back down.

The next BLRA meeting is Thursday, but it couldn't be determined if the Port Authority deal would be reintroduced. BLRA Executive Director Nancy Kist could not be reached for comment.

JCMAN320

October 16th, 2007, 04:18 PM

Rifle maker moving to Bayonne and says it plans to hire locally

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A New York classic rifle company aims to make a new home on this side of the Hudson River.

The Henry Repeating Arms Co. plans to move its Brooklyn-based manufacturing operations to Bayonne by this spring, company president Anthony Imperato said yesterday.

And Imperato is hoping to tap the city's employee base to help make the 96-year-old company's vintage rifle, which made its debut during the Civil War. Today, the company sells its product to distributors who, in turn, sell to retailers nationwide.

"Bayonne is the Brooklyn equivalent of New Jersey, in my mind at least," Imperato said.

No retail sales will be done at the Bayonne location, he said.

As its future home, Imperato said, the company bought a warehouse at 59 E. First St., the old Good Times Video building, which fronts on Lexington Avenue between East Second Street and the Kill Van Kull, near Brady's Dock.

Imperato said the building has one tenant, a distribution business, on whose future he declined to elaborate, but he did say that Henry Repeating Arms plans to renovate 109,000 square feet of space to accommodate its manufacturing operation.

In February, Henry won a $344,250 New Jersey Business Employment Incentive Program grant from the state Economic Development Authority, based on its promise to create 90 new jobs in the state, EDA spokeswoman Erin Gold said.

Eventually, Imperato said that Henry hopes to employ as many as 150 at its Bayonne site.

Yesterday, NJbiz.com reported - and Imperato confirmed - that Henry paid $8.5 million for the Bayonne property and will spend $3 million on renovations and $1.5 million for new equipment.

City Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Michael O'Connor said that "we worked with EDA trying to find an appropriate location for them."

Dagrecco82

October 23rd, 2007, 01:53 PM

Farewell, 157 Tickets to Middle Class
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/21/nyregion/colnj600.jpg Dith Pran/The New York Times
LATEST CASUALTY The AGC Chemicals plant, a fixture of Bayonne for more than 40 years, will close Dec. 31. By KEVIN COYNE

Published: October 21, 2007
Bayonne

In the Region

Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey
Go to Complete Coverage » (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/index.html)

THE meeting was called for 7 in the morning, right at the start of the day shift at AGC Chemicals Americas, and when everybody at the sprawling plant filed into the warehouse they heard the news that nobody expected — that the future they all were counting on was gone.
Gone: 157 jobs with mortgage-paying wages. Gone: a plant that has been a fixture for more than 40 years amid the tank farms and pipelines, the smokestacks and steel girders, the railroad tracks and lumbering trucks of Constable Hook, the storied industrial peninsula where John D. Rockefeller’s giant Standard Oil refinery once reigned. Gone: one more manufacturer from a state that does much more of its work in offices than factories these days.
And gone: a workplace where fathers worked alongside sons and brothers alongside brothers for decades, just minutes away from their homes, in jobs they expected to retire from.
“You could hear a dime drop, absolute silence,” said one longtime worker who, like several others, requested anonymity when discussing the closure, because the company had asked employees not to talk to reporters. “It’s like a funeral, no exaggeration. Every day, every department, the same way. It’s somber just talking about it — ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I don’t know, what are you going to do?’ ”
New Jersey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/newjersey/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) has been bleeding manufacturing jobs for decades — from a peak of 892,500 in 1969 to 317,900 now — but the decline in many industries was gradual enough that workers could spot the end looming in the distance. At AGC, it was swift and unexpected, the dagger of global competition.
“The company made every effort trying to make the business survive, but when you’re in a single-product business, it’s hard,” another longtime worker said, citing the millions spent in recent years on an expansion project that still isn’t finished. Then he slipped reluctantly into the past tense. “It was a really nice place to work.”
The product is something that you don’t buy in a store but that you encounter without knowing every day: chemicals known as fluoropolymers, which are used in everything from brake pads to electrical cables to frying pans. And fluoropolymers, it turns out, can be manufactured much more cheaply in China and Russia, where wages are low and environmental regulations lax. Company officials didn’t respond to requests for comment, but a prepared statement cited “poor market conditions and changing market structure.” AGC is a subsidiary of Asahi Glass Group of Japan.
“It’s gone from being a premium chemical to a commodity, and on that basis, even though AGC spent a significant amount of money upgrading the facility, they were unable to compete,” said Michael O’Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corporation. “It was definitely a shock.”
Sanford R. Oxfeld — a Newark labor lawyer who has represented the union at the plant, the independent Bayonne Chemical Workers Union, for more than 25 years — was expecting to begin negotiations on a new contract soon for the 89 members, but instead has been working on the severance package. “This is heartbreaking,” said Mr. Oxfeld, who also represents scores of other unions. “This is my favorite client. They’re the way unions were, the way I think unions should be. They weren’t interested in endorsing anybody for president. They wanted to make a good living and aspire to the middle class.”
And that’s where their jobs put them, with a wage scale that topped out at $28 an hour, and plentiful overtime available. Many managers at the company are union members who worked their way up.
“You definitely got treated well,” said another worker, who also veered uncertainly between past and present. “It’s a very, very friendly place. It really was a great atmosphere.”
The AGC plant sits within view of Route 440, adjacent to a redevelopment site where, as part of Bayonne’s continuing transformation of its industrial waterfront, construction is scheduled to begin soon on a 400,000-square-foot big-box shopping center. About a third of the 30-acre site belonged to AGC, land the company wasn’t using but was initially reluctant to sell.
“We move from a production society to a consumption society,” said Joseph J. Seneca, an economics professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/rutgers_the_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org). The transformation of the land, he said, is “a good icon of it.”
The names of the stores expected to open at the shopping center are scheduled to be announced this fall. “Instead of having really nicely paid manufacturing jobs,” Mr. Oxfeld said, “there’s now going to be a bunch of strip malls, and you’re going to have people getting paid one-third the salary these guys are getting paid.”
The plant is still running around the clock, as it always has, turning out chemicals whose price has been undercut by other plants far from Bayonne. The shutdown is planned for Dec. 31, when the chill that has only now entered the air surely will have deepened.
“There’s not much left, especially in New Jersey,” another worker said. “These jobs that you could support an entire family on, they’re just disappearing. It’s a different world now.”
E-mail: jersey@nytimes.com

JCMAN320

October 23rd, 2007, 02:10 PM

This is a shame, so many people depend on that comapny. Another 157 jobs outsouced to countries far away. Now to be replaced by a shopping center.

Light rail bus service a casualty

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Bayonne's municipal layoffs will force the city to cancel the free bus service linking downtown residents to the 22nd Street Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station, Interim Mayor Terrence Malloy said.

"The drivers are being laid off, so the New Jersey Transit shuttle vehicle will no longer be available to transport people from Fourth Street, North Street and Avenue A to the station," Malloy said.

NJ Transit had donated one of its vehicles to the city to use for the program and the city is giving that vehicle to Hudson County's Transcend Program, which is taking over the city's senior medical transports under a $100,000 contract with the city. The same drivers being let go by Bayonne were also assigned to handle senior transports.

Discontinuation notices are being distributed to the shuttle passengers. The shuttle's last run will be Nov. 9, when the layoffs take effect.

It operates Monday to Friday, running northbound only from 6 a.m. to 9:40 a.m.; and southbound only from 4 to 7:20 p.m., at 20-minute intervals.

JCMAN320

October 31st, 2007, 12:06 AM

Uptown condos cleared to rise

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

An uptown Bayonne residential development will be breaking ground soon, a city official said yesterday.

Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corp., said that Baker Residential, of Pleasantville, N.Y., is looking to begin the first phase of its long-planned Hudson Bay Club project, between the Hi-Hat restaurant/catering hall site at 54th Street off Kennedy Boulevard and Newark Bay, shortly after New Year's.

O'Connor and City Planner John Fussa said in separate interviews that the state Department of Environmental Protection has issued a "No Further Action" letter affirming that a soil cleanup of chromate wastes on part of the development site performed earlier this year by a Honeywell contractor is complete, clearing the way for the residential project.

Baker representative Rob Holmes said the company is prepared to go forward with the infrastructure for the first phase of its five-tower, four story, elevator-equipped, 158-unit for-sale condominium project, having obtained city building permits.

In a press release, Baker sales director Brett Tinney said that "pre-construction sales" for a combination of one- , two-and three-bedroom condominiums, with 27 different floor plans, are expected to open "early next year."

Tinney said that one-bedroom units will be tentatively priced "from the upper-$200,000s" and that two-and three-bedroom homes will be "priced from the mid-$300,000s."

Amenities planned include underground parking, an outdoor pool, fitness center, clubhouse, elegant lobby and concierge service, Tinney said.

Baker previously developed the 144-unit Boatworks townhomes in Bergen Point and the Bay Harbor Club, a 30-unit apartment building in the midtown area.

JCMAN320

November 3rd, 2007, 01:10 PM

Bayonne voids $50M port deal; P.A. may sue

Saturday, November 03, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Now the lawyers get involved.

After spending five hours behind closed doors with special counsel Joseph Baumann, the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority commissioners voted unanimously Thursday night to cancel a $50.5 million land sale with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The commissioners said they'd "reconsider the contract at a subsequent meeting" but that they'd also evaluate proposals submitted by three rival groups.

A Port Authority spokesman said the bi-state agency may sue the BLRA.

In a four-page resolution voted on at about 11 p.m., the BLRA said the action it took at a special meeting on Sept. 20 to sell about 90 acres of the so-called Maritime District at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor to the Port Authority for development as a "roll-on/roll-off" car port was void because it was done at a meeting that was "in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act."

Port Authority spokesman Marc La Vorgna said the agency was "very surprised" because "we have a signed contract" and that it would "consider whatever legal means is appropriate in moving forward with that contract."

"I can't rule out a lawsuit," he added.

La Vorgna said one of the other bidders, PortsAmerica - a subsidiary of AIG Global Investment Co. - was trying to make an end-run around the BLRA's land use restriction on container ports by raising its offer from $75 million to $90 million.

"At $90 million, that number has to be for a container terminal," La Vorgna said.

PortsAmerica President Stephen Edwards responded: "We're looking forward to meeting with the BLRA to pursue our plan to run a roll-on/roll-off facility for the import/export of cars."

Baumann, the BLRA counsel, said that he hopes to review all the materials so as to prepare a recommendation for the commissioners, possibly in time for their Nov. 15 meeting.

macmini

November 18th, 2007, 06:48 PM

In the Region | New Jersey
Coming Soon: Affordable Views
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/18/realestate/18livi.xlarge1.jpg
PAST IN THE PRESENT A view of Broad Street captures the painted-brick library, which started as a bank a century ago.
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: November 18, 2007

BAYONNE
NOW here’s something different: condominiums that will offer panoramic water views, clubhouse amenities, adjacent parks, and ferry or train commutes to Manhattan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo), but are not characterized by their developer as “ultraluxury.”

They are not going to be ultraexpensive, either: the Hudson Bay Club here, which has sales opening in January, plans to ask under $300,000 for one-bedroom units, and start in the mid-$300,000s for two- or three-bedroom condos. The condos are on the Newark Bay side of Bayonne, where a modest revitalization has taken hold over the last few years.

The city, once an industrial powerhouse, is pinning dreams of a more expansive makeover on the other side of its peninsula, facing New York City (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo). There, it plans to redevelop a huge former naval base; builders have already been chosen for projects that are to create a total of 6,700 housing units, 750 hotel rooms, 340,000 square feet of retailing, 465,000 square feet of cultural space, and 242,000 square feet of civic space.

The scale of the project is even more massive than what has taken place in neighboring Jersey City and Hoboken.

But city authorities estimate that transforming Bayonne in such fashion could take 15 to 30 years. In the interim, small-scale progress is occurring on the city’s west side, where public improvements have attracted private developers.

Near the Hudson Bay Club condo site, there is a new wetlands park with a biking trail, and a boardwalk meandering through a marshy area. Also, a “pocket park” was created on the tip of the point of land where construction vehicles are now busily at work, preparing the property for construction. And the city has spruced up and polished a beautiful older park, the rambling Stephen R. Gregg.

The Hudson-Bergen light rail system has been extended, providing a connection to Jersey City’s PATH trains to Manhattan.

The Hudson Bay Club’s builder, Baker Residential, a company based in Pleasantville, N.Y., that likes to focus on “urban infill” projects with waterside access, has already completed two condo projects not far away in its Newark Bay-side development.

The first, in 2004, was the Boatworks, a community of 160 town homes built on the site where John F. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_fitzgerald_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s World War II PT-109 was assembled and launched; a refurbished marina there now berths private crafts.

Next came Bay Harbor Club, 31 condos in a four-story building right on the bay; the project went up on what had been an empty acre sandwiched between houses in a long-established neighborhood.

The Bay Harbor building served as a model for the five condo structures that will rise at Hudson Bay Club, housing a total of 158 units, said Clark D. Atwood, Baker’s general manager in New Jersey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newjersey/?inline=nyt-geo).

The elevator-equipped buildings all have abundant windows and balconies, and assigned parking spaces in an underground garage.

It took longer than expected to get the Hudson Bay Club project under way because of an arduous cleanup of chromium-contaminated soil that had to be completed by the former landowner, Honeywell International, Mr. Atwood said. State environmental authorities certified that the land was safe several months ago, he added.

The Hudson Bay Club condos, which are offered in 27 different floor plans, will range in size from 1,000 to 1,700 square feet, he said. The penthouse units will have two levels.

Mimicking what has become routine in buildings in Gold Coast communities, the Hudson Bay clubhouse will offer a fitness center, an entertainment hall, a kitchen and an outdoor pool. Each building will also have its own landscaped terrace.

In the first two projects, Mr. Atwood added, many of the buyers could not have afforded the same lifestyle in Hoboken and Jersey City, but were able to secure it “one train stop further down the line.”

The water views on the western side of Bayonne are quite dissimilar to the eastern ones: busy shipping docks instead of open river; the Bayonne and Vincent R. Casciano bridges instead of the George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows; the skyline of Newark, rather than New York.

On the other hand, what separates the two sides is only about half a dozen blocks.

The ferry terminal is on the river side, at the site of the as-yet-unstarted, more massive redevelopment, as is a Royal Caribbean Cruises home port established three years ago. “Water, water, everywhere,” Mr. Atwood said. “Bayonne has some unique water views — very busy, very intriguing and very affordable.”

JCMAN320

November 19th, 2007, 03:04 PM

BMUA wants to harness power of the wind

Monday, November 19, 2007

The Peninsula City could become the Windmill City. The Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority is asking the New Jersey Clean Energy Program to consider funding a wind turbine to provide electrical power to its Oak Street pump station and other power-dependent facilities.

BMUA Executive Director Steve Gallo said the agency would look to sell surplus power back to Public Service Electric & Gas.

"We're spending between $40,000 and $60,000 a month now on electricity," Gallo said.

Consultants' estimates put the cost of building the turbine at $1.2 million to $1.5 million, Gallo said. "Our energy savings would have to exceed the debt service in paying off the construction costs for this project to make sense," he said.

Gallo said the turbine and 250-foot-high windmill pole could be operational in about a year.

"It's supposed to be quieter than a truck driving by," Gallo said.

In other business, Gallo said the BMUA would be testing a chemical product from Engineers Plus, of Richmond, Va., designed to disinfect raw sewage discharged during heavy storms at the city's combined sewer overflow sites throughout Bayonne.

RONALD LEIR

JCMAN320

November 20th, 2007, 04:52 AM

Building down; project still on

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A longtime midtown Bayonne department store, sold four months ago to a redeveloper who planned to convert it to office space, is now a pile of rubble after the city concluded it was unsafe and had to be torn down.

But the development team, Bayonne Medical Realty LLC, of Fort Lee, which acquired the three-story corner building in August for $1.9 million, remains committed to going forward with its original project.

Problems surfaced Friday at Irwin's Discount Department Store, 22nd Street and Broadway, when a contractor was in the process of gutting its interior. A city permit had been issued Nov. 2 for $50,000 worth of work.

City spokesman Joseph Ryan said city Construction Code Official Michael Feuer was called to the site after a front supporting column split. Ryan said bricks in the column started to loosen when a contractor removed a Masonite "peg board" from a wall.

An architect and a structural engineer retained by Bayonne Medical Realty were sent to the building and they arranged to prop up the building that night, Ryan said.

But on Saturday the structural engineer noticed that the front of the building had begun to bow and, after consulting with Feuer, it was decided that "the safest thing to do was to take down the building," Ryan said.

The structure was demolished Saturday and the cleanup continued into yesterday. The Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority and PSE&G sent in crews to shut off utilities and police blocked off Broadway at 21st and 23rd streets and barricaded access to 22nd Street from Avenue E.

The city designated Irwin's and the adjacent three-story Carvel building at 478 Broadway as "an area in need of redevelopment" in January 2006 and Bayonne Medical Realty eventually bought the Irwin's property. The store had been operating for the past 50 years.

Dr. Robert Federman, a Newark dentist and the managing partner of Bayonne Medical Realty, said yesterday that while the demolition "is a real tragedy for us," the developers, nonetheless, "intend to build a 12,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art medical building with dental and medical offices to serve the community of Bayonne."

JCMAN320

November 26th, 2007, 09:12 PM

Port Authority sues Bayonne agency over waterfront deal

by the Associated Press Monday November 26, 2007, 8:28 PM

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today sued a redevelopment agency in Bayonne, asserting that the local group cannot scrap a $50.5 million deal for the bistate agency to purchase waterfront property for a "roll-on/roll-off" car port.

The Port Authority seeks a court order upholding a contract it reached in September with the Bayonne agency to acquire a 153-acre parcel for a future auto marine terminal and other maritime-related uses, according to the lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court for Hudson County.

The Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority voted Nov. 1 to void the deal, saying that it did not place enough ads to legally advertise the September meeting when it approved the deal. The local authority also said it received a higher bid of $90 million from Iselin-based Ports America, which is owned by AIG Global Investment Group.

In response to the lawsuit, John F. Coffey II, general counsel for the Bayonne agency, said, "We believe that the BLRA was within its rights to act as it did."

The land at issue is part of the former Military Ocean Terminal, a 437-acre site previously operated by the U.S. Army as a dry dock and supply base. In 1995, the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission designated the military facility for closure, and it was later transferred to Bayonne for redevelopment.

JCMAN320

December 8th, 2007, 02:44 AM

BLRA to sell $30M in bonds

Saturday, December 08, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority is preparing to issue $30 million in bonds to finance infrastructure and some clean-up work for the "Bayonne Crossing" shopping center project off Route 440.

BLRA Executive Director Nancy Kist said she may ask commissioners to convene a special meeting next week so the BLRA can appear before the state Local Finance Board on Dec. 12 to seek the board's approval to float the bonds.

Kist said neither the city nor the BLRA would be on the hook for the debt service.

"The city has a PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) agreement with the developer, Cameron Bayonne LLC, and a portion of the PILOT payment stream goes to pay off the bonds," Kist said. Last month, the BLRA commissioners signed a redeveloper's agreement with Cameron, which hopes to begin construction early next year.

Cameron has yet to announce its roster of retail tenants for the site.

In the meantime, environmental clean-up work is to proceed at the lot. ExxonMobil will pay for most of this clean-up, which will be monitored by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

JCMAN320

December 11th, 2007, 09:39 PM

Firefighters to leave Peninsula

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

City fire rigs are giving way to private cars.

Bayonne will be vacating a city firehouse at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor to make room for an automotive marine terminal in the Peninsula's Maritime District, to be operated by PortsAmerica Group, officials said.

Yesterday, the Fire Department busied itself moving some lockers, supplies and miscellaneous items from the Peninsula firehouse as a first step in preparing for the structure's eventual demolition. There are six pieces of fire apparatus in the building.

Plans are being formulated now to set up what acting Fire Chief Patrick Boyle called a "temporary facility" at another Peninsula site in or near the Harbor Station District, closer to Route 440, where the master plan for the Peninsula envisioned placement of a firehouse.

Eventually, a "permanent" firehouse is to be built in the Harbor Station District, Boyle said.

Nancy Kist, executive director of the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority, which owns the Peninsula land, said: "I'm trying to get the property sold so, the firehouse and anybody who's a tenant in the Maritime District will have to leave."

The BLRA commissioners voted Nov. 26 to sell more than 90 acres to PortsAmerica for $90 million to develop as a "roll-on/roll-off" automotive cargo facility, but the closing on the property isn't expected until the end of January.

Kist said there are "maybe a dozen paying tenants," including McCabe Ambulance and independent trucking firms, who will have to be relocated elsewhere on the Peninsula, along with the firehouse. Also in the way is Building 74 - an old Army structure - which houses equipment and supplies from the city Public Works Department and from the city Parking Authority, she said.

"It's not our intention to have (the firehouse) disappear from the base," Kist said. There will be some type of fire protection service needed at the Peninsula, she said.

When MOTBY was still operating, the Army maintained its own fire department and built a firehouse at the base and when the base closed in 1999, Bayonne took over the fire service, even absorbing some of the Army firefighters.

Boyle said the city is investigating what type of structure would be most appropriate as a temporary firehouse. "It might be like the bubble at the Giants' (Meadowlands) practice field or we might go with one of those pre-fab buildings," he said.

Given that the BLRA wants the firefighters out by Jan. 31, Boyle said: "There's no way we could put up a permanent structure in that time - we'll have go out for an RFP (Request For Proposals) for a design-and-build plan." Boyle said he had no idea how much it would cost to put up either the temporary or permanent firehouse.

In the meantime, Boyle said that the firefighters assigned to the Peninsula will continue working there as long as possible.

JCMAN320

December 12th, 2007, 05:30 AM

Bayonne shopping center on BLRA agenda tomorrow

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority will meet in special session tomorrow night to consider issuing up to $30 million in PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) revenue bonds to support the proposed Bayonne Crossing shopping center off Route 440.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall, 630 Avenue C.

BLRA officials have said that the $30 million is earmarked for utility infrastructure and some remediation required to deal with contaminated soil at the project site on the east side of the state highway off East 22nd Street.

The commissioners will also be asked to authorize an amendment to the previously approved agreement with Cameron Bayonne that allows an industrial business in the project site to relocate to a BLRA-owned parcel in the old Standard Tank Redevelopment Area nearby.

RONALD LEIR

JCMAN320

December 13th, 2007, 05:15 AM

Army releases deed to BLRA

Thursday, December 13, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Five years after it transferred the former Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne to Bayonne, the Army has released the deed to certain portions of the 430-acre property where it had forbidden residential or recreational development because of soil contamination.

But now - for the first time since the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority has controlled the land, and has since cleaned it up with the help of $11 million in federal money - the long-awaited conversion of the former military logistics base to a civilian mini-city can begin with construction of the first new housing units, said BLRA Executive Director Nancy Kist.

Kist said that honor will go to Trammel Crow, a Morristown firm, slated to build 535 luxury rental apartments - including 16 "affordable" units - on two new city blocks that will be carved out of seven acres in the so-called "Bayonne Bay District" at what is now known as the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.

"They should be ready to put a shovel in the ground within 30 to 45 days," Kist said.

Kist said the Army issued the deed documents last Thursday.

Asked why the Army waited until now to release the deed - after the BLRA had completed the remediation work by the end of 2004 - Kist said: "They wanted to proceed carefully because they wanted to make sure that any future users of the property realized that the Army was still responsible for any contamination that remains."

But Kist said the chances of developers disturbing any of the sub-surface toxins which have been either removed or capped over were slim because the BLRA is "raising the land's elevation, from two to nine feet, to get it out of a flood plain." And, if needed, she said the BLRA will arrange for "engineering controls" to ensure that no environmentally compromised soil is disturbed.

It remains to be seen how the BLRA will deal with the Trammel Crow contractor doing pile-driving to create the foundation for the two four-story buildings that will house the new apartments, plus a parking deck, and a clubhouse.

Kist said that Trammel Crow has already plunked down $18 million for the right to build at the Peninsula.

How much real estate taxes will be paid for the property has yet to be calculated, she said.

Trammel Crow has paid the Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority a $1.5 million water connection fee to allow for water and sewer utilities to be installed at the site, according to BMUA Executive Director Steve Gallo.

The first tenants at the project should be moving in within 18 months, Kist predicted.

JCMAN320

December 13th, 2007, 05:22 AM

Zito apts to open after 4-year delay

Thursday, December 13, 2007
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

More than five years after ground was broken, the owners of Bayonne's newest senior citizens' building are ready to dedicate the Thomas W. Zito Bayside Apartments, 23rd Street off Newark Bay, at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.

A plaque honoring Zito, a former Bayonne Housing Authority executive director, will be unveiled in the new building's lobby.

Visitors will get a tour of the 5-story structure that will house 87 studio and one-bedroom apartments - earmarked for people ages 55 and up - a senior nutrition center, and the administrative offices of the Housing Authority, which will manage the development.

New tenants are expected shortly "after the holidays," said BHA Executive Director John Mahon. Rents range from $600 to $1,100 a month, he said.

The City of Bayonne will receive an annual payment in lieu of taxes fixed at 8 percent of the annual gross revenues for 30 years under an agreement approved by the City Council in November 2000.

The 94,000-square-foot building, owned by Thomas W. Zito Urban Renewal LLC, an offshoot of South Shore Village II Leased Housing, a charitable tax-exempt corporation, was expected to take 14 months to complete. But construction delays developed, at one point shutting down the project for five months.

An indictment in October 2006 of the project's architect/engineer Al Sambade for extorting $100,000 from the general contractor, Cutting Edge, of Bayonne, and income tax evasion didn't help.

In April, federal jurors exonerated Sambade on the extortion charges, but found he illegally evaded taxes. Sambade was sentenced to six months under house arrest and three years probation.

The building owners have sued Sambade and his company, DAL Design Group, for breach of contract, negligence, and unjust enrichment.

A separate civil suit filed against Sambade by Cutting Edge was merged with the owners' suit last month and the consolidated suit is still in the discovery phase, officials said.

Roseland attorney Thomas Foti, who is representing Sambade, couldn't be reached yesterday.

JCMAN320

December 14th, 2007, 01:41 PM

Lowe's store to anchor new Bayonne mall

by Ronald Leir Thursday December 13, 2007, 7:34 PM

Lowe's, the national home improvement store chain, will anchor the new $130 million Bayonne Crossings shopping center, expected to generate more than 800 jobs, said Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corp.

O'Connor also said Circuit City and Chili's had signed leases to occupy space at the 360,000-square-foot mall, on the east side of Route 440, and that Longhorn Steak House and Starbucks have been given leases and were expected to sign.

The prime tenant will take up 145,000 square feet of retail space, O'Connor said.

Neither the shopping center developer, Cameron Bayonne LLC, nor Lowe's would confirm that the chain would be establishing a Bayonne presence but the redeveloper agreement between the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority says that Lowe's "shall have the exclusive right during the term of its lease ... to operate within the shopping center a building material supplies or home center or home improvement retail warehouse."

"There's a signed lease," said O'Connor.

Construction of the shopping center is expected to begin early next year and, according to the redeveloper agreement, should be completed by September 2010.

A plan by the BLRA to issue up to $30 million in bonds to finance utility infrastructure and some remediation of contaminated soil at the 25-acre site was up for approval by the state Local Finance Board this week but the state board opted to carry it over for consideration to next month.

JCMAN320

December 14th, 2007, 08:52 PM

Bayonne OKs shoping center, despite some misgivings

by N. Clark Judd Friday December 14, 2007, 4:00 PM

A frustrated Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority commissioner, Nicholas Mangelli, abstained from a vote last night on what has been billed as the final step towards development of the controversial Bayonne Crossings shopping center.

"I feel like I'm being asked to pass a resolution with a gun to my head," Mangelli said of the resolution, which paves the way for Controlled Demolition, a current occupant of land that will become Bayonne Crossings shopping center, to be relocated to a portion of the former Standard Tank site on Ingham Avenue.

Mangelli said he was frustrated because he'd only received final versions of the deal, which had been revised since previous BLRA meeting, "maybe an hour before the meeting" last night.

He said he approved of the Bayonne Crossings project and to changes that were made for the final draft of the resolutions -- just not the circumstances that had him voting on resolutions he'd had little time to review.

The changes were made so that the city could move Controlled Demolition from the acre of land it will occupy on the Standard Tank site in the event another entity wanted to develop there.

Mangelli abstained from voting on both resolutions, which passed anyway.

BLRA Chairman Howard Fitch and Commissioner James Pelliccio were absent.

The deal itself, which moves the last remaining tenant from the Bayonne Crossings site and clears the way for developer Cameron Bayonne, LLC to begin environmental clean-up and eventually construction of the shopping center, sets up a development that has some citizens worried for the future local business in the city.

"There's a fear this is going to destroy Broadway," interim Mayor Terrence Malloy said at the meeting.

Responding to concerns that anchor tenants Lowe's and Circuit City would draw business away from smaller Broadway merchants, Malloy countered that with big-box outlets already in nearby Jersey City on 440, the damage had already been done -- but pulling shoppers to Bayonne Crossings would at least keep big-box-generated sales taxes in Bayonne and filling the coffers of the city's Urban Enterprise Zone.

Malloy said that the project is expected to raise between $1.5 to $2 million in UEZ funds.

JCMAN320

February 18th, 2008, 02:39 PM

BLRA updates 'Promenade' plans

Monday, February 18, 2008
By PAUL KOEPP
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Detailed plans for the redevelopment of the former Texaco oil terminal in Bergen Point should come before the Bayonne Planning Board sometime this spring.

Project director Jesse Ann Ransom, of the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority, gave an update on the 70-acre, $500 million project, "The Promenade at Bayonne," at the board's meeting last week.

Jason Kaplan, president of the site's developer, Kaplan Companies, said that in addition to 1,000 housing units, the company's designs would accommodate a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stop if the line is extended to First Street. He also said a ferry terminal could be built with service to Elizabeth, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Kaplan estimated that it will take 12 to 14 years to complete the project, which will be centered on extensions of First Street and Avenue A. He conceded that getting permits for the cleanup of the terminal and the adjacent former Pirelli Cable site has been slow and difficult.

"There have been a few more bumps along the road than anyone would have cared for," he said.

The BLRA is working to get approval for a cleanup plan from the state Department of Environmental Protection, as well as a waterfront development permit. It's also trying to have the site included in the city's Brownfield Development Area, which would speed up the permit process, Ransom said.

Kaplan will give the BLRA plans in four to six weeks for the project, which must be at least half residential and 25 percent open space, and no more than 25 percent commercial. The design calls for banquet facilities, a community center, soccer and baseball fields and a roller rink, as well as a reconstruction of the pier and an extension of neighboring Collins Park.

JCMAN320

February 19th, 2008, 11:03 AM

Shore fixed, but fishing got harder, anglers say

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

BAYONNE - In solving one problem at Stephen R. Gregg Park, the county may have created another.

The county hired Flanagan's Contracting Group, of Hillsborough, in August 2006 to repair and upgrade the collapsing shoreline and bulkheading at the Newark Bay park for nearly $3.8 million and the job is "98 percent" completed, according to Freeholder Doreen DiDomenico, of Bayonne.

But park regulars like John Korek and Nick Kourupis, who were enjoying the very unseasonable 60-degree day yesterday at water's edge, complain the county has unwittingly ruined the fishing.

Korek, a Port Authority retiree, and Kourupis, a doorman at a North Bergen high-rise, griped that the steel reinforcement to the bulkhead wall, which juts out from the wall about a foot and a half, gets in the way of people - particularly young ones with small poles - trying to haul in their catch from the bay.

"Some people step out onto the steel bulkhead as they're reaching for the fish with a net," Kourupis said. While the water isn't very deep at the bulkhead - about 4 feet - the men said that anyone who might topple over into the bay - especially youngsters - could be seriously hurt if they fell onto big rocks or other sharp objects below the surface.

Aside from that, they said, the flat sheathing surface tends to be a collection point for all sorts of debris - like the whiskey bottle and beer can that were clearly visible to a visitor yesterday - that they said can easily end up as pollutants in the bay.

But the two fishermen acknowledged improvements.

Sinkholes at the southern end of the park have been filled in and asphalted over. An old storage shed tilting toward the water was razed. The equivalent of 11 blocks of bulkheading lining the bay, from 37th to 48th streets, has been reinforced with steel sheathing going down to the bedrock and anchored by steel rods fastened to the original concrete wall.

The county also repaired the decking of an inlet bridge at the foot of 40th Street and arranged for the planting of oyster shell beds in hopes of luring more fish to the area, DiDomenico said.

"We're starting to get complaints about sinkholes at the northern end of the park, so we'll be addressing that soon," she added.

And an open, canopied steel shelter with two benches at the southern end was erected - but not up to snuff, according to Korek and Kourupis.

"They built the gazebo too small and too high - and there's no tables," Korek said. "They have tables over at Veterans Stadium."

JCMAN320

February 25th, 2008, 11:53 AM

Army still nixes city bailout

Monday, February 25, 2008

The U.S. Army restated its position in a Feb. 14 letter that the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority may not hand over money to the city to close its $40 million budget gap.

The letter states that the BLRA's financial statements "do not include sufficient information to allow the Army to fully understand how the BLRA is fulfilling its obligations."

City Law Director John Coffey II said the city is still negotiating with the Army to find a financial arrangement that will allow work at the former Military Ocean Terminal to go forward.

The BLRA had until Jan. 31 to submit its financial statements for the period ending in September, but that deadline has now been extended to March 31.

PAUL KOEPP

JCMAN320

February 25th, 2008, 12:11 PM

BAYONNE PLANNING BOARD MEETING
New health care facility

Monday, February 25, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
and housing proposals

A new midtown health care facility and more downtown housing are on Bayonne's drawing board.

The Bayonne Planning Board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall to review an application by Bayonne Med Realty, LLC, to put up a five-story building at the northeast corner of Broadway and East 22nd Street, the site of the old Irwin's Discount Department Store.

The developers, who bought the property from Irwin and Ann Rausch for $1.9 million last August, had planned to convert part of the old store into a medical facility but the building partly collapsed and ended up being demolished.

Now, the developers - Dr. Robert Federman, of Fort Lee; Dr. Richard Lipsky, of Woodcliff Lake; and Donald Drapkin, of New York - want to build an elevator-equipped five-story building on the 8,250 square foot lot. It would have retail space on the ground floor, a "Maya Health Care Center" on the second and third floors, and rental office space on the top two floors.

The developers' application, filed by Sayreville attorney and Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski, says that they are negotiating with Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish to lease off-street parking for their project.

The application describes the proposed clinic as a "federally qualified health care facility" which would employ 60, provide "primary health, oral, and other medical services, regardless of ability to pay," and operate Monday to Saturday, including two nights a week.

For possible retail tenants, the developers say they're considering "such uses as a chain drug store or a Borders bookstore."

At 6 p.m. on March 11, the Planning Board will hear testimony on an application by Bergen Point Associates, LLC, proposing to construct a 59,236 square foot, 5-story mixed-use building on a 13,738 square foot lot on the east side of Broadway between Dodge and Silver streets as a continuation of the Bergen Point Village project.

Partners Steven DeMaio, Steve Cmielewski, Francis Szklarski, and Jerome Brenner propose a ground-floor commercial space, with 28 for-sale apartments on the upper floors, and on-site parking for 33 cars. They also plan to provide a "small green area" on property owned by Trinity Episcopal Church at the northwest corner of Broadway and Fifth Street.

Plans call for 16 one-bedroom units, priced at $280,000 per unit; and 12 two-bedroom apartments, priced at $325,000 per unit.

The project's total market value is projected at about $8.5 million; it would generate net annual revenues of about $100,000.

JCMAN320

March 6th, 2008, 04:13 PM

8 condos for lot bared after fire

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Despite the downturn in home sales, one Bayonne development team remains optimistic about succeeding in that vein.

The Bayonne Zoning Board of Adjustment gave those hopes a boost when it voted last month to greenlight plans by Three Eighty-Four, LLC to put up an eight-unit condominium building at 382-384 Avenue C, between 16th and 17th streets.

Two buildings formerly at the site were torn down after a fire last September.

The developers plan to install four one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units in the new structure, which will provide nine on-site parking spaces.

City Planner John Fussa said the developers will be required to contribute $56,000 to the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

The zoning board approved the project with a number of conditions that included the strengthening of a fence bordering a rear parking lot and widening each ground-level parking space to 81/2 feet.

RONALD LEIR

JCMAN320

March 13th, 2008, 11:49 PM

Road to 'Peninsula' paved with eminent domain

by Ronald Leir Thursday March 13, 2008, 7:48 PM

The Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority has seized a small strip of land by eminent domain to create an additional access point to the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor now being developed for luxury housing, offices, hotels and other uses.

BLRA Executive Director Joseph Nichols said that the 360-foot-long access road near the intersection of Pulaski Street and Pulaski Lane will be "vital" to servicing truck traffic expected to come from a portion of the Maritime District expected to become an auto marine terminal.

Nichols said that last month State Superior Court Judge Maurice J. Gallipoli signed an order conferring title to the property owned by Pulaski Real Estate LLC, of Kearny, to the BLRA.

Nichols said that the BLRA has deposited $495,000 -- which it reckoned to be the fair market value for the .88-acre property -- in a court trust account, pending the completion of negotiations between the BLRA and Pulaski Real Estate on a final price for the land.

Morristown attorney John Buonocore Jr., who is representing Pulaski Real Estate in the matter, said: "The parties continue to talk amicably and are hoping to resolve the situation."

Pulaski Real Estate hasn't contested the BLRA's right to take the land for a public purpose -- creating a roadway. "Using eminent domain is the quickest way to establish title to the property," explained BLRA general counsel John Coffey II. "The only thing being disputed is the price," he said.

Both sides are to appear before Gallipoli in the Brennan Courthouse in Jersey City at 9 a.m. on March 28 to hash out the matter.

In legal papers filed with the court, the BLRA lawyers contend that the cost of any environmental cleanup of property that may be required would have to come out of the $495,000 the agency has already deposited. If any additional cash is needed for the cleanup, it would be up to Pulaski Real Estate to come up with the money, the papers said.

The 90-acre portion of the former MOTBY site is expected to be developed as a "roll-on/roll-off" car transfer facility, but ownership of the land has remained in dispute ever since the BLRA voided a deal to sell the land to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for $50.5 million. The BLRA eventually sold it to a rival firm, PortsAmerica, for nearly double the price. The P.A. is suing to get back the property.

JCMAN320

March 24th, 2008, 04:57 PM

Owners pledge to keep BMC's nursing school

Monday, March 24, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The new owners of the Bayonne Medical Center have pledged to continue its two-year School of Nursing, which has been an arm of the hospital for more than a century, said school director Nancy Bonner.

Bonner said the school will remain at its current Hook Road location, at least through June 2009.

"There are no plans to close," Bonner said. "In fact, we're looking for another full-time instructor with a master's degree in nursing," she said.

Bonner, who took over as director in December 2007 after having served as a faculty member since 1982, said that the school figures to graduate 27 students this June.

Last year's graduates all passed the National Council Licensure Exam for Registered Nurse qualification on their first try - no small achievement since the National Council of State Boards of Nursing listed the national pass rate of first-time exam takers for 2006 as 83 percent, according to BMC spokeswoman Christina Filip.

Pass rates for Bayonne first-time test takers were 93 percent for 2005 and 83 percent for 2006, Bonner said. "The New Jersey State Board of Nursing requires each school to achieve an 80 percent or better pass rate over a three-year period," she said. If a school falls below that mark, it's placed on probation and can lose its state accreditation.

Of last year's 26 graduates, Bonner said that nine got jobs at Bayonne Medical Center; three have left to work for other employers, she said.

Between "10 and 12 percent" of the students are male, she said.

JCMAN320

March 27th, 2008, 03:19 AM

April start expected for shopping center

Thursday, March 27, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Bayonne should see its second highway shopping center start taking shape soon.

That's the latest forecast by Eric Alderman, a principal with Cameron Bayonne LLC, which is building Bayonne Crossing, the $130 million, 360,000-square-foot "power" center planned for the east side of Route 440 between New Hook Road and East 22nd Street.

"Construction won't start any later than April, and full completion should happen by the fall of 2009," Alderman said.

In the meantime, Alderman said, the 25-acre site has been cleared except for an industrial property that is to be relocated; an environmental remediation plan to remove and/or cap underground contaminants has been approved by the state, and leasing of prospective tenants "is going well."

The anchor tenant will be Lowe's, the national home improvement chain store, and Circuit City and Starbucks have also signed on, according to Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corp., which helped assemble the project.

In all, there will be 24 tenants - "all national and new to Bayonne," Alderman said.

He declined to name them but said they will include electronics, clothing, general merchandise and furniture stores; casual and specialty restaurants; banks, and personal services such as "high-quality nail salons."

The project is expected to provide 800 retail jobs, Alderman said.

It is to include parking for more than 1,400 cars, new sidewalks and curbing connected to various public plaza areas that can accommodate future bus stops.

The main entrance to the site will be via Route 440 North; secondary access points will be from New Hook Road and East 22nd Street.

"Over the next 25 to 30 years, this project will generate more than $50 million in net taxes and Urban Enterprise Zone sales tax proceeds for the city of Bayonne," Alderman said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has tagged much of the development tract a "brownfields" site, meaning that it's an environmentally compromised property. But ExxonMobil, as the former landowner, has accepted responsibility for helping clean it to standards acceptable to DEP.

Some of that cleanup may actually start before the closing, Alderman said.

Cameron Bayonne is relying on Keybank, N.A., as its primary construction lender, but, it's also getting a boost from the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority, which is issuing $24.5 million in bonds to pay for "extraordinary costs" associated with the environmental cleanup not being borne by ExxonMobil, along with "capitalized interest" to pay debt service on the bonds.

A small portion is earmarked for construction of a pedestrian bridge over the highway - probably closer to the 34th Street Light Rail Station.

The Bayonne City Council has approved an arrangement for Cameron Bayonne to make annual payments in lieu of taxes so the development can anticipate what its long-term financial liabilities to the city will be.

Various government agencies are contributing money and expertise to help make Bayonne Crossing what the city is calling a "showcase brownfield development project" for New Jersey.

The New Jersey Redevelopment Authority gave a $25,000 planning grant and financed some site acquisition with a $4 million loan; the New Jersey Economic Development Authority gave $600,000 in a combination of brownfield grants and loans; the New Jersey DEP Brownfield Development Initiative and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Brownfield Office provided technical guidance, O'Connor said.

"This project is going to be the catalyst for further retail development on other brownfield sites along Route 440 and throughout the rest of the Bayonne community," he said.

JCMAN320

April 9th, 2008, 10:31 AM

Car exporter's Bayonne move may be thwarted by P. A.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A transportation company specializing in exporting cars is looking to move into a Bayonne waterfront property that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wants to acquire "for marine terminal purposes."

APA Logistics, which is moving from Elizabeth, is leasing about 225,000 square feet of space at an industrial property at 150 Pulaski St., whose landlord is listed as Dynamic Handling. Mark Tannen, who brokered the deal for CB Richard Ellis, declined to give the financial terms.

"It was for fair market value," Tannen said. The building has 45 loading docks and includes 10,000 square feet of office space.

The P.A. apparently is flexing its power to seize land by moving to condemn the Pulaski Street property and two adjoining industrial properties to the east, listed as 180 and 180A Pulaski St.

Asked why APA would occupy a property that the P.A. may, ultimately, seize for its own uses, Tannen said: "We'll have to wait and see what happens." APA President Tom Downs couldn't be reached yesterday.

Meanwhile, the BLRA is hoping to nail down a deal with Dynamic for a property swap. In exchange for taking away the land to create a new road, the BLRA proposes to give Dynamic 11.4 acres of land immediately south of its property for $2.8 million, BLRA Executive Director Joseph Nichols said.

RONALD LEIR can be reached at rleir@jjournal.com

JCMAN320

April 24th, 2008, 12:36 AM

Big M betting parlor coming to Bayonne?

by Ronald Leir Wednesday April 23, 2008, 7:01 PM

Have a favorite horse you want to bet on? You might be able to place that bet in Bayonne, year-round, in the near future.

The New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, the agency that operates the Meadowlands Racetrack, wants to set up its second off-track wagering facility on a six-acre tract on Route 440 North, just off the East Fifth Street exit.

Last October, the NJSEA opened its first OTW in a strip mall in Woodbridge, where $2 million is wagered weekly. The state Legislature has authorized 15 OTWs for New Jersey. Bayonne has until May 15 to decide whether to accept the proposal or to slam the teller window shut.

Interim Bayonne Mayor Terrence Malloy said that he wants to visit the Woodbridge OTW before he makes up his mind, but First Ward Councilman Ted Connolly, who has already visited that facility, said he'd welcome one in Bayonne.

"I'm impressed with what they have down there and I think this will be a real good shot in the arm for Bayonne," Connolly said. "Based on the state's figures on lottery sales, we know that people here like to gamble and we'd probably get a draw from Staten Island as well."

Alex Dadoyan, NJSEA assistant vice president of racing development and distribution, said the Bayonne facility would include a restaurant similar to the McLoone's at the Woodbridge site and could generate a combination of 100 full- and part-time jobs, including OTW staff, security, maintenance, and food service.

"Doors would open at 11 a.m. for the benefit of our customers, and we'd probably open for business at around noon," Dadoyan said. "We'd bring in racing from all over the country on big flat screen TVs and people would wager in real time, with real track payouts."

The facility would offer wagering on races at the Meadowlands and races at other tracks that are now simulcast at the East Rutherford track.

Once all city and state approvals were secured, Dadoyan estimated it would take anywhere from six months to a year for the Bayonne facility to be operational.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chosen site will require cleanup

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Old truck cabs and trailers now litter the land where a state agency wants to put a Bayonne horse betting parlor. Below the ground lies contaminants

But city officials, the landowner, and the state agency say those are hurdles that can be cleared with time and money.

Because the state has classified the land proposed for a Bayonne off-track horse betting parlor as a "brownfield," or contaminated site, the property owner, Don Weiss, of Short Hills, would have to clean the land to standards set by the state Department of Environmental Protection before the project could go forward, according to Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corp.

In late 2006, the city packaged the site with about 30 others as part of a "scattered site" redevelopment plan. The designation makes the property owners eligible for state grants providing technical assistance for land remediation.

Weiss, who is receptive to the NJSEA office, said the cleanup costs would likely exceed $2 million.

Weiss had previously received the city's OK to develop the property as a self-storage depot, but a rival operator sued to stop it and won. Now, with vehicle hulks rusting on the site, Weiss concedes: "It's admittedly an eyesore."

The NJSEA picked Bayonne because it has "strong highway access, a large concentration of population, both nearby and within a certain radius, and certain demographics," Dadoyan said.

O'Connor said the out-of-the-way highway location makes it an ideal place for the OTW.

"It's hemmed in by two freight rail lines, it backs up to the IMTT petrochemical plant, it's isolated from any residential neighborhood, and it's criss-crossed by numerous pipelines, all of which make the place difficult to attract development," O'Connor said.

"But this use of the property will generate jobs and taxes - it's a winning bet for Bayonne."

RONALD LEIR

JCMAN320

April 28th, 2008, 10:24 PM

EDITORIAL
Gambling good for Bayonne? You bet

Monday, April 28, 2008

Should Bayonne become home to one of 15 statewide off-track betting parlor?

The Jersey Journal believes the Peninsula City should take advantage of this opportunity and accept the proposal. The proposed location is not near homes, schools, or churches. The wagering facility where people can place bets on horse races that are simulcast on video screens will provide needed revenue to the state and more employment for the city and surrounding area.

The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, the agency that operates the Meadowlands Racetrack, wants Bayonne for its second off-track wagering facility on a six-acre tract on Route 440 North, just off the East Fifth Street exit.

It is now littered with old truck cabs and trailers, between two freight rail lines and backs up to the IMTT petrochemical plant. An off-track wagering facility and an adjoining restaurant would be the best use of this brownsfield site that would require about $2 million to clean up the area to the satisfaction of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Bayonne's proposed betting facility could be similar to that of Woodbridge's OTW and could generate a combination of 100 full- and part-time jobs, including betting parlor staff, security, maintenance and food service.

Located in a strip mall, the restaurant at the Middlesex OTW, McLoone's, has some video monitors but it also has a separate entrance from the large off-track wagering area to provide a family dining atmosphere.

City officials said Bayonne may have been selected based on the state's figures on lottery sales. The facility would offer wagering on races at the Meadowlands and races at other tracks that are simulcast at the East Rutherford track.

A Bayonne OTW would probably also draw bettors from Staten Island, which can only help the local economy.

Bayonne officials should not even wait until the May 15 deadline to accept the proposal.

JCMAN320

May 3rd, 2008, 05:37 PM

Bayonne may get China center

Friday, May 02, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A global businessman from China wants to convert his 23-acre industrial property on Bayonne's east side to accommodate a hotel and commercial/retail center to attract Chinese tourists and business travelers

Howard Li, founder/chairman/chief executive officer of Waitex International, Inc., is asking the City Council to designate him as conditional developer for the "Bayonne International Commerce Center" and wants the city Planning Board to ready a redevelopment plan for the site at Pulaski Street and Route 440, just north of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.

But the council, at the urging of members Ted Connolly and Gary LaPelusa, voted Wednesday night to put off consideration of Li's proposal to May 21, despite pleas by Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Opportunity Commission, for it to act.

Li was unreachable this week but, in separate interviews, O'Connor and Li's attorney, Robert Cavanaugh, said that Li proposes to demolish his 350,000-square-foot Waitex warehouse and replace it with a hotel and trade center.

Li, whose companies control 3 million square feet of warehouse space in the United States and manufacture, import and export men's and women's clothing to major U.S. department and specialty stores, took over the Pulaski Street warehouse from another operator in 2000, according to an investment Web site report.

In January 2006, President Bush appointed Li to the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, whose mission is to promote equal economic opportunities for Asians in the American market.

Exactly what Li envisions for the property is still a bit unclear.

O'Connor said Li "is looking at various concepts for an international commerce center modeled after those existing in Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example," and Cavanaugh mentioned an Asian "cultural center."

Both mentioned plans for a hotel. O'Connor said it would have 400 rooms, but Cavanaugh said it could be 900 rooms.

"The need for a retail center/hotel is significant in this area for many Asian travelers who come into New York, from China in particular," Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh said part of the hotel could be dedicated as a regional convention center for trade shows and other events and that part of a proposed 550,000-square-foot retail/commercial complex could be devoted to "marketing" activities.

JCMAN320

June 2nd, 2008, 11:29 PM

Big plans for midtown Bayonne

Thursday, May 29, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

New apartments, upgraded retail space, a parking garage, and a public plaza will be the ingredients of a redeveloped central business district for Bayonne.

That's the expectation of city officials following the City Council's vote last month to designate Bayonne Developers Associates LLC, a joint venture of KOR and Time Equities, as conditional redeveloper of the Broadway Corridor Redevelopment Area.

The six-acre tract, which includes 17 privately owned parcels, two public housing sites and municipal parking lots, is bordered generally by 19th and 21st streets and Broadway and Avenue E. Officials say public housing tenants would be untouched by the proposed redevelopment. The site is near the 22nd Street Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station off Avenue E.

A city screening committee recommended KOR/Time Equities over proposals submitted by a group headed by the Alessi Corp. of Bayonne and by P&F Management Co., of Hillside.

Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corp., said the joint venture's "demonstrated ability to see long-term projects through to completion, their financial resources, and their vision for the Bayonne Town Center" gave them an edge.

KOR/Time Equities is a player in Downtown Jersey City. The companies recently put up "Montgomery Greene," a 19-story, 113-unit luxury residential condominium tower with a 124-space valet garage in Exchange Place which, according to KOR president Harry Kantor, is "95 percent occupied.

"We were attracted to the assets Bayonne has, in terms of quality of life, and we think Bayonne could be well-served by what we're bringing to the table," Kantor said. "Our intention is to reinvigorate the Broadway Corridor and to leverage access to Turnpike and rail travel."

The city's conceptual plan for the Corridor calls for a "mixed-use transit village" with "upwards of 500 new and/or improved residential units, 100,000 square feet of commercial space, structured parking, and a public amenity of 5,000 to 10,000 square feet," said City Planner John Fussa.

"We don't anticipate using eminent domain," O'Connor said. "We won't push anyone out. We can work with property owners to provide opportunities to find renewed value in their land."

Fussa said the city envisions a mix of low-and mid-rise residential buildings "and perhaps one building of 10 to 12 stories, but height will be secondary to density for this project."

A combination of "loft residential, condominium, or apartment flats" would be permitted, he added.

JCMAN320

June 11th, 2008, 06:26 PM

"HOLE IN THE GROUND"
Pull plug on planned

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
By RONALD LEIR
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
clinic for Irwin's site

A development team that wanted to open a medical clinic on the site of the old Irwin's Discount Department Store in midtown Bayonne has killed the project.

Sayreville attorney/Assemblyman John Wisniewski, representing Bayonne Med Realty (BMR), LLC, notified the Bayonne Planning Board last week that, "at the request of my client, I am hereby withdrawing my client's application (for site plan approval)."

Wisniewski said yesterday, "My client made a business decision that it was not in their interest to pursue the project so the application is terminated. The client has the property up for sale."

BMR and its principals - Dr. Robert Federman and Dr. Richard Lipsky, both of Bergen County, and Donald Drapkin of New York - had sought the Planning Board's OK to put up a six-story building at Broadway and 22nd Street and to use two floors as a "federally qualified health center" to provide primary health care to indigent clients.

But representatives of the Bayonne Medical Center griped that the plan threatened the viability of a similar FQHC it wanted to implement at the hospital for some clinical operations that would be a revenue shot in the arm. BMC officials also contended that BMR failed to satisfy city land use requirements on parking and lot coverage.

"Now Bayonne has a second hole in the ground," one city wag said, referring to a nearby vacant Broadway site where there is only an unfinished foundation for what was to have been a movie theater.