Through a stakeholder engagement program, the NJEDA learned that while communities need grant funding to address the challenges posed by underutilized or vacant spaces, some of the eligibility requirements in the original program limited accessibility for many potential applicants. The updated program will maintain the basic structure of the original program but builds in greater flexibility, which will allow more communities to benefit, the NJEDA states.

One challenge to applicants the NJEDA identified was stringent square footage and vacancy requirements that barred too many potential projects from eligibility. The new program expands eligibility by removing space and vacancy rate as eligibility requirements and instead incorporates them into the scoring criteria used to evaluate projects. This will broaden the program while ensuring that properties of significant scope and scale are prioritized.

The new 21st Century Redevelopment Program also expands potential uses for the grant funding to include support for communities seeking “area in need of redevelopment” designation under Assembly Bill 1700. This bill, signed by Gov. Murphy on Friday, allows municipalities to designate vacant and underused malls and corporate office parks that have had less than 50% occupancy for at least a year as “areas in need of redevelopment,” which gives them greater flexibility surrounding future land-use decisions related to the property.

With this change, potential uses of the grant funding now include, but are not limited to: legal analysis to explore the appropriateness of designating one or more relevant properties in the community as an “area in need of redevelopment; ”stakeholder engagement and facilitation to identify community desires and needs; the identification of appropriate funding sources to support community led re-use of one or more properties; cataloging relevant retail and office properties in a community and identifying priority sites when considering community needs; economic analysis relating to the feasibility of various redevelopment and/or reuse scenarios and land use planning identifying the most suitable re-use scenarios.

Another key improvement to the program addresses the process by which the NJEDA will accept applications. Instead of the rolling application process built into the original program, the NJEDA will now establish a competitive application window of 90 days. Once all applications are received, staff will evaluate and score them competitively, with the five highest scoring applications to be recommended to the Board for grants. This will ensure only the plans with greatest community benefit will receive funding rather than offering an advantage based simply on when the application was received.