All roads lead to Journal Square! Always considered the “heart of Jersey City,” Journal Square has had a rich history of serving the entire city and county. The Square provides a great opportunity to secure the city’s economic future and create one of the truly great central business districts (CBDs) in the country. Beginning in early 2007 and culminating in summer 2010, the Journal Square vision plan came to life. The visionings effort was a true public/private effort, with local residents, businesspeople, anchor institutions such as Hudson County Community College/Saint Peters, and city officials working together over a three-year period to bring the plan to fruition. Adopted by the City Council in June 2010, the plan was honed at more than 30 community meetings, some large and some small, to get it right. The Journal Square plan, now the 2060 plan, has proved to be a remarkable success for the city’s CBD.

 

The plan, built around smart growth principles, now encompasses approximately 233 acres in the heart of the city. From the beginning, the 2060 Plan was embraced by the broad array of stakeholders that were deeply involved in the long process. The commitment to the plan can be seen not just in the award-winning Journal Squared Towers, but also with the wide range of mixed-use towers built or under construction in the Square. The heart of the 2060 plan was always about the smart transit-oriented development and transportation network that leads to the Square. The private sector had done its job by quickly sensing the potential of the Square and moving redevelopment forward at an unheard-of pace.

 

The plan is now in its 30th year and many of the original goals of the plan have been realized. The development of world-class, mixed-use towers has progressed at unprecedented speed. Moreover, the current development of both the historic Loews Theater and the Centre Pompidou is bringing arts and entertainment back to the Journal Square CBD. The Journal Square 2060 plan has clearly demonstrated that a shared redevelopment vision of the community and private and public sectors can lead to meaningful community renewal. 

In the two decades since the federal government turned over control of Governors Island to New York City, city officials have sought an innovative way to use the 172-acre patch of land with stunning views of Lower Manhattan. The city chose a consortium led by Stony Brook University to transform one of the island’s last big chunks of developable land into a 400,000-square-foot hub called the New York Climate Exchange. The campus, which will focus on researching climate solutions and training for green jobs, is expected to open in 2028.

Essex Crossing represents a true partnership between public and private interests. L+M, BFC Development Partners, Taconic Investment Partners, and The Prusik Group, along with Grand Street Settlement, were awarded the sites after a competitive RFP process in 2013. The entire project, located in the Lower East Side, is projected to be over 1.9 million square feet; seven of nine parcels are developed, and the last two parcels are expected to be completed by 2024. Once completed, the $1.5 billion project will include 1,079 units of residential rental and for-sale housing (of which over 50 percent will be permanently affordable to a wide range of incomes), over 700,000 square feet of commercial space, 350,000 square feet of office space, 100,000 square feet of community and cultural facility space, and 100,000 square feet of exterior and interior green space, including a new public park.

Key commercial users include NYU Langone Ambulatory Care Center, Trader Joe’s, Target, The Gutter NYC bowling, Regal Cinemas, a new and expanded Essex Street Market and The Market Line. Key community facility uses include a new senior center run by Grand St. Settlement, Henry Street Settlement’s Workforce Development Center, an early childhood education center operated by the Chinese American Planning Council, and the International Center of Photography.

Lower Manhattan has undergone a renaissance in the years since September 11, 2001. In a nearly flawless example of public/private partnership, the World Trade Center site was redeveloped not only to honor and remember the victims of 9/11, but also to create an even stronger central core for Lower Manhattan. Existing properties also underwent transformations, from the repositioning of the stoic World Financial Center to the vibrant mixed-use Brookfield Place as well as the multiple office to residential conversions. Led by key players in the transformations from Silverstein Properties and Brookfield Properties, this tour will explore the history of Lower Manhattan in its many incarnations and will delve into what the future will hold in the post-pandemic environment.

New York City has a unique and varied history developing mixed-income housing. As cities around the country grapple with a growing housing affordability crisis, state and local governments are increasingly experimenting with different programs and formats of producing mixed-income housing to address this challenge. This panel will provide a deep dive into the topic, exploring where mixed-income housing works and where it sits in the continuum of attainable housing solutions. Mixed-income housing has the potential to provide economic, social, and political benefits, including serving a wider range of incomes, improving social mobility, increasing production in supply constrained markets, and mitigating financial risk. Panelists will draw from the experiences of NYC projects such as Essex Crossing, Navy Green, and Hunter's Point South to shed light on the benefits and challenges, including NIMBYism (not in my backyard), levels of affordability, and resource allocation; demystify available financing vehicles; and identify the tools government can deploy to promote mixed-income housing.

Fifteen-minute communities hold the promise of accelerating decarbonization, increasing housing affordability, reducing climate and health risks, and fostering social equity. This approach to city building lays a foundation for developing compact, mixed-use, and walkable communities that can increase real estate value, create co-benefits for joint use and co-location, and generate new resources to help invest in local communities. The ULI Curtis Infrastructure Initiative created Building 15-Minute Communities: A Leadership Guide to share actionable leadership strategies across public, private, and nonprofit sectors to decarbonize metro regions with a network of 15-minute transit-oriented communities; diversify urban central business districts into affordable, live-in downtowns; humanize edge cities into heat-proof, resilient, retirement, and child-friendly communities; densify suburban corridors into walkable, mixed-use innovation districts; transform suburban malls into transit and trail-oriented mixed-use communities; and activate exurbs as working landscapes of agrihoods and nature-based solutions. Learn about this practical tool for aligning leadership actions to implementation.