Jones Lang LaSalle


Growth of port and county are linked
Middlesex economic forum shines spotlight on core of 'Liberty International Corridor'
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
BY DIANE C. WALSH
Star-Ledger Staff

Middlesex County is in a prime position to benefit from the rapid growth at the Port of New York and New Jersey, an executive from the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority said yesterday at the county's first economic summit.

The port is the core of the "Liberty International Corridor," stretching from the George Washington Bridge, south along the spine of Interstate 95 and down to the Raritan River, according to John Hummer, who is in charge of economic development for the transportation authority.

Last year, records were broken when more than 4.8 million containers were shipped through the port, feeding a massive cargo and freight industry, according to Hummer, who said Congress earmarked $100 million to develop the infrastructure for the region.

"It will be New Jersey's equivalent to the Silicone Valley," he said.

Old manufacturing jobs that the region lost in the past decade could be replaced by new light manufacturing jobs, such as warehousing, and the service industry that feeds off the port, Hummer said.

But sponsors of the summit voiced fears that warehouse jobs do not pay enough.

Jane Brady, a former freeholder now in charge of the county's department of employment training, said a family of four must make at least $34,000 a year to be self-sustaining. Warehouse jobs often do not pay the $15 an hour needed to keep a family from sinking below the poverty level, she said.

Carl Spataro, the county economic development coordinator, lamented that high-paying jobs are being lost and replaced by lower- end retail, service and hospitality jobs. Brady and others urged the local leaders to improve education, especially literacy programs, so workers can land jobs in higher- paying industries, such as information technology, financial services and health care.
Still, Hummer said a new working class could be created by the economic boom at the port and entry levels could lead to better, high-paying jobs. Furthermore, he said brownfields near the port could be redeveloped.

Hummer said it was his job to "knit together the infrastructure to support this economic development."

Officials from 13 towns around the county attended yesterday's two-hour summit at the Sheraton in Edison. Edison Mayor Jun Choi said the session showed "we need to focus on regional planning and coordination.

"If we're going to grow right, we need to do it in a coordinated way," Choi said.
Thomas Dallessio, the New Jersey director of the Regional Planning Association, one of the oldest independent planning agencies in the nation, urged the participants to "coordinate and collaborate" across the region.

He said Middlesex County is sitting in the middle of a mega-development region in the Northeast. "It's the economic breadbasket," he said. "But you need to talk to one another."