Plan Overview
Bayfront is envisioned as a dynamic and affordable mixed-use community, focused on a series of compelling new places, all oriented around transit. The Plan features 8,000 units of residential development, up to 340,000 sf commercial retail, a new elementary school, and firehouse. Bayfront will feature three high-quality parks highlighted by a new Riverfront Park which will provide residents of Bayfront, the Westside, and the entire City with the opportunity to enjoy City’s western waterfront. Knitting the community together will be network of multi-modal streets, bike lanes and enhanced pedestrian realm that will put the entire residents within an easy walk of public transit, and connecting Bayfront with Society Hill, as well as New Jersey City University.
The Plan is based on several key principles:
- Maximizing social equity for all ethnic and age groups by including over 2,000 units of affordable housing
- An emphasis on walkable streets and parks, with landscape and public open spaces dominating the view.
- Market-driven and staged redevelopment with public infrastructure linked to private investments
- Integrating public infrastructure and open space for coastal protection and storm water management
- Promoting Sustainable development by putting all new residential development within easy walking distance of transit and creating new a natural shoreline at the water’s edge.
Waterfront Vision
With over a half mile of shoreline, Bayfront comprises one of the longest contiguous sections of publicly-controlled waterfront in Jersey City. Together with the areas to the south and north, the development of Bayfront creates the opportunity for a continuous publicly- accessible waterfront extending over two miles from Thomas M Gerrity Athletic Complex to Lincoln Park.
The goals for the Bayfront waterfront are to:
- Provide major public gathering place for Jersey City residents to enjoy the city’s Hackensack River waterfront.
- Provide waterborne transportation access to major employment destinations in Newark and Kearny Point.
- Enhance the coastal resiliency of the City’s west side waterfront.
- Create a major new public park that is sustainable environmentally and economically.
Major Transporation Hub
With Route 440 providing north-south access to the region, and the proposed HBLR Station providing access to Downtown Jersey City, Bayfront sits at a crossroads on the West Side, creating the potential to connect Bayfront, and the entire West Side, with major employment centers to the west, such as Kearny Point, the Port of Newark, Newark Liberty International Airport via water taxi.
Family-friendly, Mixed-income Neighborhoods with 35% of Affordable Housing
The Plan anticipates a range of land uses to allow Bayfront to function as a complete community. Bayfront’s predominant land use, Multi-family Residential is complemented by Commercial office and retail, Public Facilities, Recreational Facilities and Infrastructure.
All of these amenities are located to provide all amenities and services necessary for community life within an easy walk for all residents. The Plan encourages flexibility, allowing multifamily residential on all parcels. Institutional and commercial retail uses are allowed on key corridors. The intent is to have uses that will reinforce the plan’s hierarchy of key places, and the network of pedestrian connections connecting them, but not required, to Public facilities, such as schools, fire stations will be required at designated parcels, while other community facilities will be allowed on key corridors.
Enhancing Coastal Resiliency
The Plan anticipates rising sea levels and increased intensities of coastal storms and rainfall events, the two most salient impacts associated with climate change. The Coastal Resiliency approach creates a resilient shoreline that adapts to the changing climate while maintaining essential functions of wave and water level protection. This approach also enhances the environmental quality, habitat diversity, and public access of the Hackensack River.