Page 24 - RE-NJ

22 APRIL 2025
BRANCHING OUT
Exchange Place Alliance seeking
broader impact in Jersey City with
expanded special improvement district
By Joshua Burd
The special improvement district
that has helped beautify,
activate and maintain a large
stretch of the Hudson waterfront
in Jersey City in recent years has
just gotten bigger — and a host of
downtown property owners are now
poised to reap the benefi ts.
The Exchange Place Alliance, which
manages the district, said work is
already underway to bring enhanced
cleaning, landscaping and other
services to an area that includes
thousands of apartments and key
destinations in the city’s Powerhouse
Arts District. That’s not to mention
programming for events and public
spaces, as well as major capital
improvements, all of which follow
a vote by the Jersey City Council
in mid-March that made the new
boundaries offi cial.
A portion of the special improvement
district, starting from 2nd Street at
the north to Christopher Columbus
Drive at the south, now extends an
additional two blocks to the west to
include properties between Marin
Boulevard and Warren Street.
“It was only a few more blocks, but
Realty Corp., said the Exchange
Place Alliance SID performs services
“We are excited to extend our capital
improvement program beyond
they happen to have a lot of buildings
on them,” said Mike DeMarco,
president of the Exchange Place
Alliance’s board
of directors. That
means several
well-known
landlords,
residents and
local businesses
will likely benefi t
Mike DeMarco
from potential
streetscape upgrades, public safety
initiatives and functions such as
maintenance and snow removal
by way of a special assessment on
property owners.
“If we do those things, when you
come out of your nice apartment
building, you walk over and go down
the block to eat at a restaurant, if
there’s no garbage on the street, you
feel better about life,” he added. “(So)
at the end of the day, the amount of
money that we charge each of these
owners is relatively minor compared
to what the value of the properties
are.”
DeMarco, the onetime CEO and
president of the former Mack-Cali
that the city “would, should or could
(do) if it had the time or the budget
to do so.” That’s not practical for a
community as large and diverse as
Jersey City, he said, which prompted
the launch of the SID in 2017 as
a partnership of Mack-Cali and
neighboring offi ce building owners
along the Hudson River, starting just
south of LeFrak’s sprawling Newport
district.
Early on, that meant simple steps
such as buying hundreds of tables
and chairs to place along the
riverfront walkway and throughout
the downtown, DeMarco said. But
the alliance has ramped up its efforts
over the past three years, revitalizing
Exchange Place Plaza by creating a
vibrant waterfront destination with an
Art Walk, a new playground, seating
and other upgrades, while hosting
concerts and arts events and planting
more trees around the area than any
other neighborhood in Jersey City.
“We went out and we had a plan to
do things not only on the service side
but fundamentally make physical
structural improvements so that the
area is actually better,” DeMarco said.
The alliance’s newest plans include
adding a community center and
a children’s park and community
garden on Washington Street, as well
as dog parks and other initiatives
to make downtown even more
welcoming.
Exchange Place
into neighboring
communities to
create similar
vibrancy and a
sense of place,”
said Deidre
Crockett,
the alliance’s
Deidre Crockett
executive director. “We thank the
councilmembers for sharing our
vision for the area to benefi t all Jersey
City residents.”
The Exchange Place Alliance is all
the more notable in that its board is
stocked with leading commercial real
estate executives from Panepinto
Properties, G&S Investors, American
Equity Partners and Ironstate
Development Co. That’s both
deliberate and critical, DeMarco said,
because they “are people that have
an active interest” in improving the
neighborhood and understand the
value of the organization’s capital
projects.
The district’s recent expansion, which
was several months in the making,
became offi cial with a vote during the
city council’s March 12 meeting.
“I support this proactive decision
by the alliance to help support
the businesses and residents in
communities adjacent to Exchange
Place,” said Council President Joyce
Watterman, who is also an alliance
board member.
Courtesy: Exchange Place Alliance
The Exchange Place Alliance manages basic services for a stretch of the Hudson waterfront in Jersey City, where it has also completed major capital projects such as activating
Exchange Place Plaza with a new playground, seating and other upgrades.