The site is the former Military Ocean Terminal, a federal facility that was closed by the Base Realignment and Closure Committee in 1995. Then-Mayor Leonard Kiczek appointed a 12-member base reuse commission, which evolved in 1998 into current Mayor Joseph Doria's seven-member Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority, which ultimately produced the plan that's being unveiled.

MOT, as it's called, is more than 2.5 miles long and a third of a mile wide, adding up to nearly one square mile of redevelopment fodder. The plan that the BLRA will unveil next week includes everything from office space, to townhouses, a shopping center, a marina, revamped port facilities and a movie production studio. City officials hope to create as many as 15,000 jobs, and by any standard the redevelopment promises to change the face of this city.

Portions of the site are already being used for various things, and demolition is already underway on some of the 75 buildings dotting the landscape. A street grid pattern is already in place, and the site includes a family housing complex. Final transfer of the site from the U.S. Army to the City of Bayonne is nearing completion. Bayonne's Municipal Utility Authority has already acquired much of the water-related infrastructure, and the Bayonne Police Department shares law enforcement jurisdiction the State of New Jersey and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Besides the housing complex, current on-site uses include a drydock operated by Central Jersey Marine Shipbuilding, an automobile warehouse, a New Jersey Transit park and ride lot and Hudson River Village, a hotel for airline flight attendants and pilots. And paving the way for permanent film production facilities, both Viacom (for the HBO series "Oz") and Universal Pictures have been renting a vacant terminal building as temporary production facilities.