HUB OF ACTIVITY

Originally appeared in the Jersey Journal on Friday, December 08, 2006

City puts money where mouth is in revitalization bid

By KEN THORBOURNE

They're the new kids on the block.

Officials in Jersey City cut the ribbon yesterday for two offices that will now operate at "the Hub" shopping center along Martin Luther King Drive.

"The Hub has been long talked about," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said. "It needs revitalization. One of the ways we can help is to put actual city offices here."

The two city offices now open for business at the Hub are the Division of Commerce and the Police Department's Community Relations Unit.

Each office has roughly 15 employees and occupies a total of 3,900 square feet in the building at 382 Martin Luther King Drive, for which the city is paying $5,200 a month rent, city officials said.

The offices opened last July, but the ribbon cutting was held yesterday because final renovations were only recently finished, officials said.

The opening of the offices represents an ongoing effort to revitalize the financially faltering shopping center and the area around it.

Early this year, the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency declared the Joint Venture Partnership that was running the Hub to be in default due to its failure to execute a housing development plan.

That Joint Venture Partnership - comprised of the nonprofit Neighborhood Development Corp. and the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation - has been replaced. The new partnership includes the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, the Neighborhood Development Corp. and two Philadelphia-based builders, Universal Companies and Brandywine Construction & Development Services.

The city's real estate division currently collects rent at the Hub. But by next month, the new partnership will assume that function, officials said.

The new partnership also has been designated to develop 238 units of low-, moderate-and market-rate housing around the Hub, officials said. The Division of Commerce workers at the Hub handle various licenses issues, including taxis and limousine inspections and liquor licenses.

The police Community Relations Unit works with seniors, and has developed DVDs and Web-based information about safety, officials said.

"I'm elated the Community Relations Unit is stationed in Ward F," Councilwoman Viola Richardson said. "And the fact Commerce is here, where there is parking . It is drawing people to the area."