Jones Lang LaSalle


Bringing Life to a Factory Graveyard
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
ORANGE

EXTREME MAKEOVER: Citywide Edition. It is not a reality show concept that ABC-TV has seized on yet, but the city of Orange is certainly running with the idea.

Now in its 200th year of existence, Orange recently adopted a sweeping master plan for development that would sharply increase the number of homeowners within its boundaries and remake a vast elephant's graveyard of abandoned factories into a lively arts district.

Orange's stated ambitions for self-improvement include everything from creating 4,000 new owner-occupied homes to re-establishing the downtown shopping district. Other projects include improving city sewers, repairing chipped public statues, establishing a system for preserving historic buildings and expanding its stately public library.

"The big picture and the small things — all of it counts in bringing new life and stability to our city," said Mayor Mims Hackett Jr.

The plan's goals may take as long as two decades to complete, city officials say, but a spate of projects are under way, or expected to get under way soon.

Developers have been selected for redevelopment projects that will provide an infusion of 2,200 market-rate condominium and town house units in three run-down or vacant areas: the eastern end of Main Street, the Central Valley neighborhood and central Orange.

The proposed addition of so much new housing in a town where nearly half of the existing houses were built before 1940 — and one in eight is overcrowded — would be "huge just by itself," the mayor noted. In the past 10 years, only about 100 units have been added in Orange, which has 33,300 residents, according to the most recent census figures.

About 75 percent of Orange's residents are renters, according to the city's principal planner, Floyd Lapp. Raising the ratio of homeowners to renters is a key to economic stabilization for the city, Mr. Lapp said last month at a community forum here.

One big residential project will situate 350 condominium units in traditional-looking four-story brownstone buildings to be built at the eastern end of Main Street, along the East Orange border.

The nearby East Orange train station is considered a hub for the eastern section of Orange, under the city's master plan. The vision is to develop the neighborhood as a state-sponsored Transit Village, with Manhattan-style brownstones and pedestrian-oriented side streets.
The area is currently filled with vacant lots, body shops and junkyards, bodegas and check-cashing outlets and will be redeveloped by the Capodagli Property Company.

Orange's own train station on Highland Avenue is at the center of another proposed Transit Village, which would also feature hundreds of new housing units and pedestrian-friendly streets with wide sidewalks and off-street parking.

A consortium of developers proposes to reuse several of the large factory buildings in the surrounding Central Valley neighborhood to create the Valley Arts District and the "Jefferson Art Walk."

"The idea is to recreate an urban village in the Valley," said Patrick Morrissy of Hands Inc., one of the developers, "using the arts as an engine of revitalization."

The development plan is to create more than 1,500 condominiums and 75 arts spaces by rehabbing the old Monroe Calculating and Harvard Printing plants, the F. Berg hat factory, Austen Drew hat factory, No-Name hat factory and an industrial building known simply as 540 Mitchell.

Street-level space along Jefferson Street would be created for artists to show and sell their work. The plan also involves creating access to the east branch of the Rahway River as a pedestrian "greenway" into the neighborhood.

A restaurant with a historic theme would be opened in the once-famous No-Name hat factory, which was owned by Stetson Brothers. Two taverns that once served the local workingmen — the Stetson Lounge and Adam's Bar — would be preserved and rehabilitated.

Hands Inc. is a nonprofit development company that has rehabbed more than 100 existing homes in Orange one by one, following a strategy of starting with the worst house on a block and then using both social programs and bricks and mortar to turn entire neighborhoods around.
It is joining with two other companies to tackle the arts district: Applied Development of Hoboken and the Alpert Group of Fort Lee. The three companies will operate as Harvard Development Associates.

A third redevelopment site centers on the vacant Orange Hospital Center on South Essex Street in the city's central district. The Manhattan-based Metrovest Properties purchased the 12 former hospital buildings last year and plans to create 386 condominiums a few blocks from the train station.

Meanwhile, the townwide effort to transform deteriorated sites has already blossomed in a few areas. For example, 70 new town house units for mixed-income tenants — ranging from very low to moderate income — have replaced the Father Rasi high-rise housing project, formerly known as the most crime- and drug-infested place in the city.

In downtown Orange, a state and federally sponsored Urban Enterprise Zone has been established, generating $3.4 million for improvement projects in the past few years, including parking lot rehabilitation for businesses on William Street, resurfacing of Main Street, extra litter collection, additional police vehicles, street banners and statue restoration. In addition, urban-enterprise profits financed the Juicy Jam Concert, which drew thousands of people downtown last summer.

The Urban Enterprise Zone program permits retail businesses to charge customers 50 percent of the usual 6 percent state sales tax.

The sales tax receipts are put into a fund that finances local economic development programs. Businesses are also aided by various tax credits and subsidized unemployment insurance costs for some new employees.

"The city's master plan is a living, breathing document," said the city planner, Mr. Lapp, at the forum last month. "It is changing the look and feel of things in Orange every day, in as many ways as we can think of."