Editor’s note: James Carvalho of EAI Inc. provided a significant contribution to this article. 

On the west bank of the Hudson River, across from the most talked about skyline in the world, is one of the most quickly redeveloping cities in the region – Jersey City.  Over the last decade, Jersey City has been transformed from a manufacturing center into a bustling community regarded as “The Gold Coast.”  The second largest city in the state, Jersey City is an example of what is possible when old manufacturing sites are transformed through the construction of residential, retail and mixed use buildings and through a proactive approach to reclaiming properties, formerly deemed “unusable,” and turning them into new ratables. 

Settled in 1660 and founded in 1838, Jersey City’s location and geography helped it grow into one of the country’s most robust manufacturing centers, hosting the facilities of such well-known companies as American Can, Emerson Radio, Colgate, Manischewitz and Siperstein Paints.  Throughout the 1960s and 70s, however, Jersey City’s manufacturing base declined significantly as factories moved overseas and the United States shifted toward a service economy. 

The impact of this shift away from manufacturing seemed devastating for Jersey City, until the mid-to-late 1980s when the city’s transformation began through the construction of numerous residential, hotel, restaurant and retail buildings.  Since that time, Jersey City has experienced a remarkable rebirth, with the widespread construction of new buildings, including the tallest building in New Jersey, the Goldman Sachs tower.  Since the inception of this redevelopment, Jersey City’s financial area has come to be deemed “Wall Street West” and the revitalization attracted ten major firms to relocate here in the early 1990s bringing thousands of jobs to the region.  The Jersey City renaissance was largely spearheaded by the development of the Newport waterfront community, which now includes hundreds of apartments and condominiums, the Newport Center mall, and a wide variety of restaurants and retail businesses.

Just south of Newport, in an area formerly filled with unused railyards, is Liberty State Park, which opened in 1976 and is now home to restaurants, the Liberty Science Center and the Port Liberte residential community. A golf course is planned for the park, and there is even mention of the NFL’s New York Jets relocating to the area.  Liberty State Park offers great views of Manhattan, recreational facilities, and ferry service to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. 

In addition, the Jersey City waterfront plays host to other impressive developments, including Exchange Place. But for all its magnificence, the waterfront is not the only part of Jersey City that has displayed signs of a renaissance.  The new Hudson-Bergen Light Rail links Jersey City to numerous stops in Bayonne, Hoboken and Weehawken and has influenced development in the areas along its route. The refurbished PATH train stations, along with Jersey City’s commuter ferries, link commuters to New York, Newark and beyond, bringing continual development to the area. Journal Square has seen the first stages of its long-awaited redevelopment, and Donald Trump plans to build the tallest residential towers in New Jersey to house Trump Plaza Jersey City. 

Located between downtown and Journal Square, the historic and architecturally significant Jersey City Medical center is under renovation under its new name, The Beacon. The Beacon’s numerous buildings will hold hundreds of luxury condominiums and related services, bringing much-needed relief to a previously neglected neighborhood.

A large number of the redevelopments in Jersey City have occurred on sites that were formerly brownfields or otherwise blighted properties in need of environmental assessment and remediation.  EAI Environmental Management Services has provided environmental consulting services for the redevelopment of the Jersey City Medical Center and numerous other sites throughout Jersey City, including the former City Chemical site. Environmental investigation and remediation is key to redeveloping any former industrial or brownfield site to ensure the safety of future residents, construction workers, and the surrounding public and businesses.

Another noteworthy redevelopment that required environmental investigation is a site in Jersey City along Route 440, where K. Hovnanian broke ground on a new residential community over a decade ago.  The Route 440 area of Jersey City has a long history of industrial use, including the sustained and long-term dumping of chromium, a carcinogen. This dumping has had a severe impact on Jersey City, posing a health risk to the community and a financial loss to the city from lost tax revenues on unused property. It is estimated that the city would have received millions of dollars worth of property tax revenues had Honeywell cleaned up the contamination in a timeframe that would have allowed the prior owners to construct housing on the site.  In order to remedy the situation, the City of Jersey City has taken a proactive approach to redevelopment by filing a lawsuit against the site’s previous owners, Honeywell International, in Superior Court of Hudson County for reparations of lost tax revenues.  The site is currently under remediation due to a lawsuit that was won in 2003 by the Interfaith Community Organization, a local activists’ group. 

Jersey City’s Law Department has also filed a notice to initiate a lawsuit against Pittsburgh Paint and Glass, who failed to clean up chromium contamination at their former manufacturing plant located on Garfield Avenue.  Additionally, the US Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has announced an additional three sites in Jersey City to be included in a chromium cleanup initiative focusing on Liberty State Park, the former Morris Canal site on Grand Street, and the Tempesta and Sons site located at Jersey Avenue and Aetna Street. Through an alliance with the DEP and the Attorney General’s office, Jersey City has placed government pressure on polluters to clean up their sites so that they may be redeveloped to provide housing, jobs, and crucial tax revenues to the community.

These chromium-contaminated sites offer substantial, if hard-won, development opportunities, and serve as additional examples of what has been taking place throughout Jersey City for more than a decade – the transformation of unused industrial sites and blighted properties into thriving new neighborhoods and developments.  This renaissance is our history, and if the past is any indicator of our future, Jersey City will see nothing short of unlimited potential for growth and improvement.