Financial Experts Speak to High School Students: New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Tom Considine and Provident Bank CEO Chris Martin spoke to students at Liberty High School in Jersey City last week about the steps they can take to ensure their financial security later in life.

Out of Service Fire Truck Prompts Community Meeting A fire rig that covers the west side of Jersey City is expected to be out of service until the end of the year, prompting concerns among local residents and a call for a community meeting by Freeholder Chairman Bill O’Dea.

Cigarette Fire Displaces Families: Three families in Jersey City were displaced Saturday by a one-alarm fire at 713 Ocean Avenue near Virginia Avenue, which was caused by a cigarette that wasn’t put out, officials said.

Jersey City Man Gets 15 Years for Forcing Oral Sex from Daughter: A Jersey City man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for having his 4-year-old daughter perform oral sex on him and he must serve more than 12 years before being eligible for parole, officials said Wednesday.

Dog Dies in Kennedy Boulevard Fire: A dog was killed and its owner has been left homeless by a Jersey City fire this morning that caused heavy damage to a third-floor apartment, officials said.

Jersey City Taxi Driver Chief Suspect in ‘Honor Killing’: The Jersey City father of a woman gunned down with her Scottish businessman husband in Pakistan has been named the chief suspect in what is believed to be an “honor killing,” according to the Scottish Daily Mail.

Crime Blotter: A fight between two homeless men at the Hoboken PATH station early yesterday left a 47-year-old Jersey City man on a respirator and in critical condition; an unlicensed 30-year-old driver has been charged with careless driving after the SUV he was driving early Saturday struck two parked vehicles, flipped on its side, and caused a chain reaction that damaged two other parked vehicles; a 34-year-old food delivery man was knocked unconscious during a robbery Saturday evening; a 62-year-old Jersey City man who works for Jersey City Public Schools was arrested Wednesday after a Ferris High School teacher accused him of grabbing her from behind and simulating a sex act on her; two teenage boys were busted Monday after threatening a 20-year-old Jersey City woman with an 8-inch kitchen knife during an attempted robbery; a Jersey City man was stabbed Tuesday evening after allegedly beating his wife and attacking her with a screwdriver; a Jersey City felon living at a Downtown shelter was arrested Wednesday morning after police observed him burglarize a car near Hamilton Park.

Today’s Best Bets:

The Grove PATH Plaza lights up with holiday cheer tonight at 5 pm for the Historic Downtown Special Improvement District’s tree lighting ceremony.

In Statewide News:

Port Authority Salaries Up $5 Million: An examination of salary and overtime records for 2010 and 2009 obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the authority spent $5 million more on salaries in 2010 than it did in 2009, despite boasts by authority officials that the agency trimmed its work force as a cost-cutting measure.

Sen. Weinberg Introduces Measure Opposing Federal Right-to-Carry Bill Proposal: Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) has introduced a legislative resolution condemning the “National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011,” saying that the federal proposal would undermine New Jersey’s gun control laws.

Number of New Jersey Residents Using Food Stamps Doubles: The number of New Jersey residents receiving food stamps has doubled in the past four years and is at its highest level in more than a decade, state and federal data show.

NJ Accountants Lied about Ethics Course: A recent audit of New Jersey’s licensed accountants found that 4 percent of them — about 780 of 20,000 — falsely reported they returned to school for a state-required ethics course.

New Jersey’s Soaring Infrastructure Costs: Earlier this month, the New Jersey State Planning Commission adopted a sobering infrastructure needs assessment for the state over the next two decades.

‘Model Curriculum’ for Low-Performing Schools: The Christie administration is launching an effort to create a “model curriculum” for low-performing schools — its most aggressive step yet to dictate not only what is taught but also how and when it is taught.

The Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association received an official notice by the JCPA and expects the move to come ahead of a stronger effort to enforce parking rules– and, of course, collect fines.

They suggest parking permits be obtained at Jersey City Parking Authority.

But soon both the warehouses and the more recent residential buildings in the area will be overshadowed, literally and figuratively, by three 30-story buildings after the city’s planning board approved a Toll Brothers’ development proposal almost four years in the making. And in a neighborhood that has been the site of dramatic change over the past thirty years — from squatting artists to city-mandated work/live allocated housing to prime real estate along a city’s waterfront that has spurred economic development for the rest of the city — the realities of long-term best intentions and the very real need for shorter-term growth are often the distorting lenses that split the difference between unconscionable action and logical progression.

“They went in for variances for buildings four times the height and double the density, and they knocked out all of the affordable housing [stipulations in the redevelopment plan] and turned it into cash payment for the city’s affordable housing fund,” says Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association President Stacy Nusbaum Woods of the drastic changes that override the PAD redevelopment plan first adopted in 2004.

Woods describes the plan as an essential document created to maintain the integrity of an area that, along with city assistance and forward-thinking residents, was already on the road to revitalization.

In particular, the group says restrictions on new construction that limit in height and mass to “support the existing fabric of the PAD” are paramount, as is considering the “adaptive reuse of existing warehouses.” Perhaps most importantly, the plan was to include affordable housing for artists in the area “when possible,” 10 percent of the total housing a nod to many of the residents who helped make the current development possible.

First submitted back in 2008, Toll Brothers’ plan was put on hold by a lengthy legal battle that ascended the judicial chain of command when the Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association (PADNA) sued the city over the drastic variances granted to the developers. In the suit, PADNA argued the proposal was “inappropriate” for the neighborhood and that keeping the character and uniqueness of the area should be at the heart of city planning.

“When you already have a neighborhood with character, with things that distinguish one city from another,” says architect and former PADNA president Jill Edelman, “that is what gives them richness, that is what makes them valuable. If a portion of one city makes it look like another, there’s no reason to choose one over another.”

But an appellate court judge thought otherwise, deciding instead that a city’s development ultimately hinges on whatever the current administration sees as best. And that’s the way it will remain for the time being, as shortly after the decision, the group’s last hope for legal intervention was squashed when the New Jersey State Supreme Court decided not to even consider the case.

At the time, city attorney Bill Matsikoudis told the Jersey Journal, “the Appellate Division’s decision completely vindicated the city’s planning process and also held that a modification to a redevelopment plan does not require a re-blighting, which would be a significant impediment to urban redevelopment.”

Now more than a year after the judge’s decision, the developers are set for the first phase of their 950-unit project that is expected to begin sometime in the spring of 2012, with the second and third phases — plans that would bring a theater and public plaza to the area and two additional towers — coming shortly after.

But the Powerhouse Arts District’s vocal neighborhood association remains concerned about the consequences to a city when variances are seemingly granted at whim.

click image to enlarge

“The money that would go towards affordable housing for artists will go into a general fund,” says Woods. “It could go anywhere the city dictates.”

“Our argument was that the redevelopment plan was working, new buildings were being developed, and hundreds of people are living here,” she adds. “You shouldn’t upend [the neighborhood] with spot zoning.”

But most worrisome to Woods is the fear that as presently constructed, the arrangement with the city allows the developers to opt out of the agreement should the risk to profits be too great. After completing the first phase — which is the construction of the first of the three residential towers — she fears that rather than build the proposed theater and plaza on Provost the developers may wipe their hands of the proposal’s public-oriented selling points.

“They could say the market isn’t strong enough and never build the other phases of the development,” argues Woods.

But Bob Cotter, the longtime director of city planning, suggests that taking a broader view of the city as a whole, and the neighborhood specifically, will show a much different undertaking than the one painted by the neighborhood association.

“The nature of my business is the management of change,” Cotter says, maintaining that Woods’ worst-case scenario of the developers abandoning the project after one phase is unrealistic. “There are lots of folks in this world who don’t want to see change, who are afraid of change.”

“We’ve spent the better part of 20 years on and off in the so-called arts district,” recalls Cotter.

In 1984, the Planning Division first had the idea to get the area designated as an historic district, he says, “but the powers that be said they didn’t want to declare it an historic district because it might limit development.”

“Back then, there were a lot more warehouses standing. Over time, some were knocked down [and] some burned down.”

It wouldn’t be until some 10 years after the idea was first hatched that the proposal of turning the area into an official arts district would gain traction, a combination of Cotter’s encouragement for the planning board to promote the area for artists along with the de facto living situation that already found artists illegally residing in the industrial buildings not zoned for residency.

Although zoning could be changed, the buildings’ owners didn’t see the percentage in making the expensive changes to be on the right side of the fire code. The squatting residents did not have the financial means to pay the higher rent that could make up for the expensive changes; after all, that is why they were living illegally in warehouses in the first place.

“Some artists lived there anyway and the city just turned the other way,” recalled Cotter. “We knew there would be hell to pay if we just kicked everyone out.”

But with the skyrocketing property value in the area beginning in the late nineties and early aughts, building owners, reassessing profits based on the new value of the area, started to see things differently. Only then would warehouses be converted, and still the city tried to stand behind the people who made the neighborhood livable, says Cotter.

“We zoned it for 100 percent live/work spaces to allow the artists there to remain.”

But the requirement undercut the developers’ profits and scared away economic growth. “Every time someone looked at doing a project there, even if they were friends of the arts, they couldn’t bank it,” he recalls.

The city “kept watering [the requirements] down” until they reached a point that stipulated the new residential buildings had to provide the current ten percent space for artists, a meager but “realistic” compromise. Soon other warehouses, who watched as manufacturing moved elsewhere, started to take notice, including a mini storage space that had been in the area for over 20 years.

“And that’s pretty much who PADNA is now,” says Cotter. Taking this longer view, he maintains, the changes to the relatively nascent area-as-legal-neighborhood do not appear so drastic.

But as the city will note, the developer’s plan does call for that public plaza and 550-seat theater, sweetening the deal for the public. And the 10 percent artists-oriented low-to-moderate housing requirement is still intact overall if not in the Toll Brothers’ massive towers specifically.

The variance granted to the developers does not leave low-income housing out of the picture completely. Along with the towers, there will be 32 units of “workforce” housing constructed in the PAD, which will be available to residents who earn 80 to 100 percent of the city’s median income. In addition, the developers will pay for the right to bypass the 10 percent affordable-housing requirement, a practice Cotter says is not uncommon among developers. The money will then be available for the city to use toward inner-city affordable housing projects.

“We’re always looking for affordable housing in the inner city and if we can squeeze it out of buildings along the waterfront, great,” he said. “The city is always looking for ways of turning vacant lots into decent housing.”

“Powerhouse Arts District didn’t work out the way the dreamers dreamed it in the 1990s, we just couldn’t get anyone to bank anything,” he says. “This is as good as we could get.”

Still, critics will likely point to the variances given to Toll Brothers as a precedent for the city to bend the rules for economic development.

The Planning Division, he says, is “planning for the entire city, not just one neighborhood.” This is just another “dot” that the city will connect to the rest of the revitalized waterfront.

Photo of 150 and 140 Bay Street courtesy of Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy; “PAD Plan vs. Toll Plan” image courtesy of PADNA

- Powerhouse Arts District: The Historic Preservation Commission last week approved by a 7-0 vote a plan that would nominate five properties in the Powerhouse Arts District as local landmarks.

- Egypt & JC: Scores of Egyptian-Americans packed into Journal Square Friday to celebrate the resignation of Egypt’s longtime president Hosni Mubarark. On Sunday, about 40 community leaders gathered in Jersey City yesterday to tell Sen. Frank Lautenberg that the Egyptian move to democracy needs the support of the United States, but not necessarily intervention.

- Apartment Scam: A Newark woman who found an ad on Craigslist for an apartment in Jersey City was apparently swindled out of $500, and the person who took out the ad is in Nigeria.

Today’s Best Bet:

- Raymond Brown and Wanda Akin Brown, two of only 26 American attorneys admitted to practice before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, will be at NJCU as part of the school’s University Lecture series (4 pm).

In Statewide News:

- School Funding Court Battle: New Jersey attorneys will be allowed to present witnesses to help argue that the state was forced to cut funding for schools because of fall­ing tax revenue, a special master in a key state Su­preme Court case decided Friday. NJ Spotlight has more on the role that the financial state of suburban districts may play in the case.

- State Worker Contracts: With contracts for 49,000 state workers due to expire this June, Gov. Christie has publicly proclaimed he wants no pay raises and expects state workers to fork over much more for health and pension benefits. Union leaders say they have had no meetings with the governor’s office and worry this doesn’t bode well for getting a deal before the current contracts are up.

- Heating-Help Program May See Cut: President Obama’s budget will propose cutting in half the program that helps low-income families and senior citizens and disabled pay their heating and air conditioning bills, according to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who signed a letter Friday urging the president to change his mind.

- Minimum Wage: A state panel has recommended that New Jersey keep its minimum wage at $7.25 per hour.

- Fighting PA’s Coal: New Jersey is joining in a lawsuit that seeks to shut down a western Pennsylvania coal-burning electricity generating plant over pollution.

- Foreclosures: The foreclosure process in New Jersey now takes an average of 849 days, compared to 340 days back in 2007.

- Police Brutality Suit in New Brunswick: Two 19-year-old Rutgers stu­dents have filed a lawsuit against the New Bruns­wick Police Department contending they were badly beaten during a raid on their building and the plainclothes officers ille­gally entered their base­ment apartment.

- Lincoln in Trenton, 150 Years Later: Abraham Lincoln is coming back to New Jersey’s capital city Thursday, 150 years after delivering a pair of historic speeches to state legislators. The 1861 visit of Lincoln will be commemorated with events at the Statehouse and the New Jersey State Museum.

Julius Torres (at left) and Ian Hinonangan (photo: Maximilian Imaging)

Despite luring a number of high-profile and big-dollar developers during the real estate boom, Downtown Jersey City’s Powerhouse Arts District (PAD) today remains largely undeveloped, uninhabited and underutilized. Even so, small business owners and residents are investing in the neighborhood, one project at a time. And to many, the Warehouse cafe, opened by Ian Hinonangan and Julius Torres last year, has become a neighborhood hub.

“We decided to open the Warehouse because we love this neighborhood,” Hinonangan says. “We live in the PAD. We see its immense potential to be the entertainment hub of Jersey City.”

On top of running the cafe, Hinonangan and Torres both work demanding day jobs, as an attorney and a nurse, respectively.

“We are blessed with a great staff … [who] make it possible for us to keep the cafe running despite our jobs,” Hinonangan says.

We recently caught up with this couple to discuss their embattled neighborhood, life on the street and the steps they are taking to preserve the historic legacy and cultural vision of PAD.

Your cafe reminds me of the coffee houses I frequented on a recent trip to Oslo and Stockholm. Did you have any cafes in mind before your launched the Warehouse?

Ian: Our two long tables are definitely Nordic-inspired, hence your right-on-target observation. Our interiors are crafty minimalism inspired. Cafes in Montreal and Mexico City inspired us. We are always changing due in part to our uncompromising belief in quality play — that’s what sets us apart.

I love movies, and the Warehouse shows them Thursday nights. Your film selections — 4 Months Three Weeks 2 Days, In the Mood for Love, Un Prophete, Central Station, among others — rival the repertoire movie houses across the river. Who chooses the films, and how has the turnout been?

Julius: We take turns choosing the movies: Ian and I and the rest of our Warehouse crew. We have a mix of directors who we love, Almodovar most especially, or artists like Penelope Cruz, Maribel Verdu, and Cecilia Roth. I am usually there to watch every Thursday nights.

Ian: Turnout varies; it depends on the movie. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas last year and, more recently, The Piano, brought a packed house. There are also times when the audience would only be the Warehouse crew. Nevertheless, we continue the Thursday screenings. We remain uncompromising in our belief that there must always be a venue for sharing these awesome films.

Running a cafe in Jersey City is hard — especially with the city’s strict adherence to its entertainment ordinance. Recently, Made with Love canceled live music after receiving a cease and desist order from the Division of Commerce and 58 Gallery was ticketed for hosting live music during an artist reception. The Warehouse features live music, DJs, open mic night and literary events. What are your thoughts on the city’s entertainment ordinance and its stringent implementation?

Ian: Running any business is hard. Running it in a no-foot-traffic zone is even tougher. But with our due diligence, we’ve been able to create a base not only of foot traffic, which is one of the many awesome facts about this venture, but a loyal and creative one.

Part of due diligence is knowing the law; in this case Chapter 157 of the Jersey City code.

Adopted in 1998, the entertainment and dance ordinance was enacted due to the city having “repeatedly experienced serious civil disturbances and other occurrences detrimental to the public’s safety, health and welfare associated with entertainment and dance venues.” Many of us were not yet here in Jersey City in 1998, so we don’t know what kind of serious civil disturbances happened.

But 12 years later, more people from Manhattan and outside of Jersey City have settled here, so a new breed of Jersey City folks could certainly benefit from an entertainment hub here — young single folks (gay and straight), young professionals and young families. The city must take this into consideration in revising its entertainment ordinance and be more entertainment-friendly.

We are in the process of securing the Warehouse’s own entertainment license. It must be noted, however, that our events, pursuant to Section 157-4 of the City’s entertainment ordinance, have always been held within permitted hours.

Have you ever run up against the city’s entertainment ordinance?

Ian: Due in part to the fact that the Warehouse is located in the PAD, which still lacks critical mass of people, we have been saved from neighbor complaints. More importantly, as members of the neighborhood and condo owners, we are equally committed to our community’s safety, health and welfare. I know that businesses throughout Lower East Side and Williamsburg have signs outside their establishments urging patrons to be respectful of their neighbors by keeping the noise down and observing basic courtesies. And this is what it all comes down to — respecting your neighbors, making it safer, fostering a community of and for artists, and bettering the quality of life of the PAD one business at a time.

Apart from your cafe, Parlay Studios, and a few other businesses, the PAD is a tumbleweed ghost town. The situation — at times — seems intractable. How do you intend to revive this neighborhood, and what is your plan?

Ian: When we jumped into opening the cafe last year, it really shook up my personal relationship with Julius. We had to always ask ourselves: we’ve got great jobs, so why embark on a cafe? It comes back to our commitment to play, to having fun, to doing what we enjoy, to giving back. Around the same time we got the cafe started in the summer of 2009, John and Cameron started work on Parlay Studios at the Ribbon Warehouse on 2nd Street and Provost. Call it divine providence, but we were mutually excited to both be embarking on this venture in the same neighborhood. More will follow, of that we are certain.

The Warehouse is committed to revitalizing the PAD one cup of coffee at a time. “Build it and they will come” — I know that a lot of patrons come to the Warehouse inspired to do their part in giving life to this neighborhood, in the millions of small ways that they can do so. We have no plan other than to provide the space for the artists, creators, adventurers, architects and visionaries. The rest is on them, with our support of course.

In 2008, the City Council gave Toll Brothers the go ahead to develop high-rise towers in a low-rise district. Recently, the Superior Court’s Appellate Division upheld the City Council’s decision to allow spot zoning in the area covered by the Powerhouse Arts District Redevelopment Plan. Do you see high-rise towers as a threat to the PAD’s cultural and economic vitality?

Ian: The Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association (PADNA) sued the City Council for cowering to big developers whose big plans for the PAD will most likely destroy the unique, historic and industrial character of the neighborhood — the very same reasons that attracted us to this area in the first place.

The trial judge sided with the City Council, citing its broad municipal powers to amend its redevelopment plan. So PADNA appealed. While the appeal has been dismissed, at least there is a record of our neighborhood’s staunch opposition to the threats against the PAD’s unique character.

The city needs to look at the examples set by its neighbors across the Hudson. Part of the Lower East Side’s charm is its architectural patrimony of tenement buildings, which have been preserved and re-adapted. For DUMBO and Williamsburg, it is the preservation and residential re-use of their warehouses.

Public works and public art can drive a city’s economic recovery. The High Line in Manhattan is a good example. This project transformed an obsolete elevated railway into a dynamic public park. The reuse of the space is visionary. The Whitney Museum is planning a new building in the vicinity. How can investment in public works and public art benefit the Powerhouse Arts District and Jersey City?

Ian: I cannot agree with you more; a joint collaborative effort between the city — through its public works — and artists, architects and creative types — through art — can jumpstart Jersey City’s economy and oft-maligned image.

The city had initially signaled its support for such a movement by collaborating with starchitect Rem Koolhaas on a new 111 1st Street building. But this is not moving. More so, the historic Powerhouse and its contemplated adaptive reuse has the potential of being central to the entire Downtown art and entertainment scene. As majority owner, the city must commit not only to the Powerhouse’s stabilization but to jumpstarting its art-centric reuse.

How would the PAD and the entire area benefit from re-using existing architecture?

Ian: Existing industrial architecture is aesthetically pleasing and keeps a city rooted in its history. Most urbanistas look for such authentic marks in a disconnected modern urban life.

In addition to the cafe, you have another venture we’re interested in learning about. What is in the interACTive PAD project, and how is the project enacting change in the neighborhood?

Ian: interACTive PAD is a collaborative project between Jersey City residents: an architectural student (Brendan Mahoney-Parsons), a visual artist (Camilo Godoy-Parsons) and myself, with the goal of getting folks “interacting” with the neighborhood. The idea is that only movement will effectuate change. People have to act and interact. No ounce of heavy planning will work if people do not act on it.

I was inspired by how neighbors in the PAD act on improving our community’s quality of life. PADNA has its street cleanups, and one neighbor is working with the City Parking Authority for metered parking and consistent parking regulation enforcement.

Our last project was during the studio tour on the first weekend of October. We installed frames throughout the PAD, hoping that passersby would interact with it. We asked people to create their own frame of reference for the warehouses and the Powerhouse in the PAD. It worked. Many people “interacted” with the frames.

[Editor's note: The next interACTive PAD project -- a public performance in front of the Warehouse -- is Friday, November 12 at 6 pm.]

You guys are not just focused on downtown. You represent my ‘hood too. What’s story behind the Lenapeeps Art Gallery, and when is the next event?

Ian: Lenapeeps Art Gallery shares space with my solo private practice in Bergen Hill section of Jersey City. Pieces from the gallery’s ever-growing permanent collection are on exhibit right now. For the past year, Camilo Godoy was the artist-in-residence and he had three shows that centered on the undocumented immigrant’s hidden life.

I hope to make the gallery into a space for more experimental art. I am fortunate to be right next to Charles Chamot’s art gallery with its impressive and eclectic art collection. Charles was a 111 1st Street heavyweight. With the destruction of 111 1st Street, it seemed that Bergen Hill is slated to be the next PAD, sort of the Bushwick to Williamsburg.

The Warehouse | 140 Bay St. | thewarehousejc.com

At right is the Powerhouse Lounge space; at left on the corner is the pizzeria space

MORE PHOTOS:

“We could have come up with a trendier name,” says Jeff Favia of the Powerhouse Lounge’s straightforward nomenclature. “But we are committed to supporting and representing the Powerhouse Arts District.”

The restaurant and bar, which is now slated to open in late September after some construction delays, will be in the Marin Boulevard building that was once home to the Rascals on the Hudson comedy club.

Favia, a former owner of the York Street Tavern near Exchange Place, was brought on as a consulting manager for the Powerhouse Lounge by the property’s owner, Dimitri Goletsos.

The two men brought in a small group of local investors — mostly Favia’s friends — and broke ground in late March. They decided to preserve the brick interior and the sliding garage doors that will open to Marin Boulevard and outdoor patio seating. 

“The building had a lot of potential,” Favia says. “It’s unique, and the high ceilings give it a cavernous feel.”

The team hopes the eclectic style and careful attention to architectural detail will appeal to local artists, and help provide a spark for the revitalization of the Powerhouse Arts District, where most of the past few years’ planned developments have yet to break ground. They even commissioned artist Thomas John Carlson, founder and director of Jersey City Art School, to paint a mural on the building’s exterior.

“Thomas was up there finishing the mural in the 90-degree heat,” says Favia, who adds that Carlson’s work has helped pique interest in the project. “A lot of people see the mural, and it makes them wonder what’s going on inside.” 

Favia and his partners believe that the economy has affected how people choose to spend their money at bars and restaurants. So they’ve planned a tapas-style menu, where diners can sample many flavors without spending 15 to 20 dollars on one entree they may or may not enjoy. 

“Our menu will feature mostly appetizer-size items, from sushi and brick-oven pizza to calamari and mini burgers,” he says. “I think it’s a good concept for the recession: good, simple, fresh food without pretension.”

As for the decor, he says, “our guests will be eating off coffee tables, on couches, at the bar, even under a tree.”

But in this rare case, the presence of a tree does not mean outdoor dining.

Instead, they’ve planted the 15-foot-tall live tree, which reaches the vaulted 20-foot ceiling, indoors. The tree, along with exposed wooden beams and the sunlight streaming through the skylights, gives the space an organic, homegrown feel. Other unique features include a computerized sound system, a “leaking” pipe waterfall, and three 50-inch televisions. “This isn’t a sports bar, but you can catch a big game if you’re looking for it,” Favia says.   

Another unusual plan for the lounge involves transportation. Though the site sits just three and a half blocks from the Grove Street PATH station, Favia says they plan to use two shuttle vans that will provide taxi service to the rest of Downtown Jersey City, some parts of the Heights and Journal Square, and the southern part of Hoboken. While the details haven’t been ironed out yet, he says patrons would access the driver by calling an 800 number.

Meanwhile, the lounge’s adjacent corner space will function exclusively as a brick-oven pizzeria, similar to Favia’s now-closed Hoboken venture Favia Lite Cafe. It will seat about 30 and offer take-out service.

“We’ll play Italian music like Louis Prima and show live videos of the The Godfather,” he says.

THE DETAILS
The Powerhouse Lounge; 360 Marin Blvd. Opening date: Late September.

Organizers decided last night to make the move, since Sunday looks to be a “perfectly sunny day as opposed to Saturday’s seemingly large bundle of thunderstorms,” as Andrea Brietman put it in an email to JCI.

PADNA had sued to stop the changes, but in April 2009 Superior Court Judge Barbara Curran ruled in favor of the city and Toll Brothers, the developer of the site. Toll’s project would, among other things, deviate from the original PAD Redevelopment Plan by creating high-rise buildings in the low-rise warehouse district. It calls for a total of 925 residential units, 44,939 square feet of retail and 917 parking spaces, as well as a 550-seat performing arts theater and an arts-themed public plaza.

PADNA argued that the 2008 amendment adopted by the council was “fundamentally contradictory” to the initial PAD Redevelopment Plan approved in 2004, which called for mostly low- and mid-rise structures, and as such should fail under review. But the court ruled there was no “substantial evidence in the record” to prove this charge.

“Plaintiff contends that the area was blighted, and the PAD plan was devised to encourage development of mid-rise, low-density structures preserving the historical industrial atmosphere of the neighborhood. Because that plan has been successful, plaintiff claims that it cannot be changed rationally,” the opinion reads. “However, nothing in the statute either precludes a successful plan from being substantially amended or requires that a redevelopment plan forever depend upon the initial impetus for the blight designation.”

It continues:

“Furthermore, whatever the merits of the argument that continuation of the existing PAD plan was the superior option, Council rejected it, and that was Council’s prerogative so long as the rejection was neither arbitrary nor capricious.”

Court Opinion on Powerhouse Arts District Development Plan

As various factions have battled over who should pay to relocate the electrical transformers inside Jersey City’s Powerhouse, the health of the historic structure has become ever more precarious. With this in mind, the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) and the Port Authority today are kicking off a stabilization project for the 100-plus-year-old structure. This JCRA says the project is designed to halt further decline of the building while the Port Authority relocates the transformers.

Architectural firm Beyer, Blinder and Belle was tapped to helm the stabilization effort, which is set to include the replacement of windows and roof and the installation of new drainage systems to mitigate any further deterioration of the structure. The process is anticipated to take three to five months, and comes with a $3.4 million price tag, which will be picked up by the city, the JCRA and the Port Authority.

Once the stabilization in complete in October 2009 and the transformers are removed, the city expects the redevelopment of the site to get underway. The $90 million redevelopment, which is expected to be complete by 2013, is slated to bring 180,000 square feet of gallery, restaurant and office space to the building.

“The building will again play a key role in the continued escalation of the city’s renaissance, both economically and culturally,” JCRA executive director Robert Antonicello says.

Officials hope the Powerhouse will anchor a revived arts district of the same name, which as recently as six years ago was a thriving center for the arts in Jersey City. Ever since the artists who called the bustling 111 1st St. home were forced out in 2004, the Powerhouse Arts District, despite the best efforts of some businesses and residents, has largely been an “arts district” in name only.

The iconic Powerhouse, which also faced demolition in the late 1990s, was saved by community groups led by the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, and the building was ultimately put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

For more on the stabilization plan and the redevelopment, check out this new site from the JCRA. For more on the history of the Powerhouse, check out JCI publisher Shane Smith’s piece in NEW magazine.