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112 acres, many ideas; Somerville seeks advice
Sunday, March 19, 2006
BY CATHY BUGMAN
Star-Ledger Staff

Somerville is gearing up for a meeting next month to solicit the best ideas from residents, business people, community leaders and other stakeholders interested in the future of the borough's last large developable tract off Route 206.

Consultants are sifting through preliminary ideas offered at a meeting earlier this month and are preparing to present three working options to the public on April 29.

Those concepts will be drawn from proposals -- including an inn and conference center; cafes; a library; a performing arts theater; a community center; parks; ballfields and walking trails -- for what is now a vacant 112-acre tract bounded by the highway, NJ Transit's Raritan Valley rail line and South Bridge Street.

But more ideas are needed, borough officials say, and they are encouraging people to contribute their thoughts to what they see as a pivotal meeting for the future of the entire community.
"This meeting is a meeting 20 years in the making," Mayor Brian Gallagher said.

The meeting time has not been set, but Gallagher sees it as an all-day session offering shuttle bus rides and tours of the landfill site in the morning and then workshop sessions for people to brainstorm ideas through the afternoon in the jurors' waiting room on the Somerville Green.
Based on the enthusiasm seen at a March 11 meeting involving community leaders mulling ideas for the site, Gallagher anticipates the next meeting will be as productive or moreso.

Key to any plan for the site will be that it complements what the downtown already offers, borough officials and consultants say.

"Somerville already has a sense of place," said Meg Walker, a vice president for Project Public Spaces, a New York City-based nonprofit planning and urban design firm. "We have to build on it, not compete with it. That's the challenge."

A dump for household trash for nearly 30 years, the site closed in 1984. It was shrouded in litigation for nearly 20 years, pitting the borough against a developer, Rosenshein Associates of New Rochelle, N.Y., who had planned to build a shopping mall on the site but never carried through with it.

Now, aided by government money, including a $185,000 grant from Somerset County's economic development incentive program and $50,000 from the state Department of Community Affairs, the borough is moving forward ambitiously to transform the property.

It has hired Colin Driver as economic development director and is moving forward in its investigation of what contaminants are located at the site. Driver said the borough is working closely with the state Department of Environmental Protection as well as with other entities, including NJ Transit, Haddonfield-based engineers Remington & Vernick and the nonprofit Regional Plan Association, based in New York City, which is offering recommendations and undertaking advanced land use planning strategies to promote economic development.

NJ Transit is in the early stages of what is expected to be a $20 million revitalization of the Somerville train station, with plans for handicapped-accessible platforms, upgraded elevators, new stairs and ramps and a rehabilitated pedestrian tunnel with new lighting, according to spokesman Dan Stessel.

Another element under consideration is partnering with the Doris Duke estate across Route 206 via a possible pedestrian link.

With all its various facets, the project is capturing widespread attention near and far, borough officials say.

"There's nothing like this going on anywhere in the region," said Driver. "Somerville is downtown Somerset County. Everyone is looking at this."

Cathy Bugman works in the Somerset County bureau. She may be reached at cbugman@starledger.com or (908) 429-9925.

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