Development Authority Set to Unveil $32-Bil Plan

BAYONNE, NJ-Even by the mega-project standards that have defined redevelopment in New Jersey in recent years, especially along the waterfront, it’s a biggie — a price tag in the neighborhood of $32 billion, 18 million sf of mixed uses, a 20- to 30-year development timeline. And next week residents of this city of 65,000 fronting on New York harbor will hear the details and get to debate the project at a city council hearing. Officials are holding off on further comment until the council convenes.

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.