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Town
Center Tattler
March 2005
Redevelopment and the Future of The Bayonne Town Center
Over the next 10 to 20 years, Bayonne will be one of the most important locations for economic growth in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Region. For example, the City has designated seven Areas in Need of Redevelopment dispersed throughout the City, including the 437 acre Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor and 6.5 acres in the Bayonne Town Center. It is anticipated that the development of these areas will result in 9,300 new residential units and 3,500,000 SF of new commercial space.
Many Town Center business operators have wondered how they will be effected by these important changes, so Cathy Jakubowski, the Town Center’s district manager, sat down with Michael O’Connor to discuss the subject. Mr. O’Connor is the executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) and a trustee of the Bayonne Town Center Management Corporation (BTCMC). He is an important member of Mayor Doria’s economic development team and has played a lead role in many of the City’s development efforts.
The following is a transcript of their conversation.
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Jakubowski: Broadly speaking, how will the Town Center’s businesses be effected by all the economic development that will be taking place in Bayonne over the next decade or two?
O’Connor: Economic development will be a boon for the community. It will improve our quality of life by removing brown field eyesores, giving us increased access to the waterfront and easing the lives of our busy residents because they won’t have to waste time driving out of town to shop or go to a movie. It also will mean a big increase in our real estate tax base, which will reduce the tax burden on our current residents.
With more than 9,300 households moving into our city, Town Center businesses can expect a lot of new potential customers. And these customers will have a lot of disposable income. For example, one of our consultants conservatively estimates that the new residents will spend at least $182 million a year for the kinds of goods and services that are usually found in shopping centers, but that can also be found elsewhere.
Most of the new development will be occurring along the periphery of our community, on or near our waterfront. Several years ago Mayor Doria made it abundantly clear that economic growth should not weaken commercial activities along Broadway, which for generations has been the commercial spine of our community. As a result, in 2001 my organization hired David Milder of DANTH, Inc to formulate a revitalization strategy for the whole Broadway commercial corridor. Since the submission of his report in 2003, both the BEDC and the BTCMC have been developing the projects and programs -- in conjunction with other City agencies such as the Office of Community Development and the UEZ-- that will help all of the businesses in the Broadway corridor benefit from our future economic growth.
Jakubowski: More specifically, how will the new big box retail center on Rte 440 impact Town Center retailers?
O’Connor: A few of the businesses in the Town Center will be adversely effected by the Rte 440 retail project -- and we’ll be there to help those that are:
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For years now, Town Center retailers offering comparison shoppers goods have been losing ground to competitors in other communities. They have already taken the really big hits.
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For example, about 80% of the money now spent by Bayonne’s residents for comparison shoppers goods (about $151 million/yr) is being “exported” to retailers in other communities.
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The vast majority of the sales of the retailers in the Rte 440 project will come from re-capturing these dollars!.
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Most of the businesses in the Town Center will not be affected by the Rte 440 retailers because they just will not be in competition with them. For example, of the 202 street-level business operations identified by the BEDC in 2002, 43% were in services and 18% were restaurants and food stores. They will not be competing with a Target, Kmart or Kohls or whatever other big box goes in there.
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Research done in other communities suggests that most of the Town Center retailers also will not be adversely impacted by “big boxes opening” on Rte 440. In Rutland, VT, for example, 56% of the merchants reported their sales had increased after a Wal-Mart opened in their downtown. In downtown Carlisle, PA, half the retail businesses surveyed reported no effect from a Wal-Mart that opened nearby and the other half was evenly split between merchants reporting declines and increases in sales.
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The shops offering moderately priced apparel, toys, DVDs and CDs, electronics, jewelry, housewares and home improvement products are most likely to feel strong competitive pressures from the new big box retailing. The retail chains offering these goods have been competing for some time with the big boxes and many have learned how to coexist with them. The independent merchants offering these goods will be the most susceptible to the increased competitive pressures that the Rte 440 project might create --especially if they already have marginal operations or are poorly managed.
However, there is a lot that these merchants can do to effectively improve their competitive positions -- and there will be time for them to do it. And the BEDC and the BTCMC will be there to help them. They definitely should enhance their customer service, especially by making themselves a very convenient shopping destination. Many shoppers do not want to spend the time it takes to drive to a big box, find parking, walk to the store, walk around a store that covers 3 acres to find what they want to buy, and then go through a long check-out line. These retailers also can help themselves by:
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Making their stores facades more attractive. A lot of shoppers feel that if a store’s facade looks unappealing, the merchandise inside also will be distasteful.
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Improving their merchandising. Retailers need to offer appealing merchandise that their customers really want. And the merchandise should be presented in an attractive manner. Crowded aisles, hard-to-find merchandise, unfolded apparel thrown into bins, etc. will not help retailers compete with the big boxes!
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Strengthening their marketing efforts. To compete, it is essential for the retailers to know their customers, to reach out to them through effective advertising and promotions and to develop a lot of repeat business.
O’Connor: Cathy, I think it is important to list the efforts you are spearheading to support the businesses in the Town Center.
Jakubowski: We are working on a number of projects and successfully drawing
resources from various city and state agencies, some examples are:
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Facades. The City’s generous incentive program, available through the Office of Community Development, means that most Town Center businesses can get up to $10,000 for façade improvements. Those on a corner can get $15,000. The BTCMC’s Jump Start program works with the businesses in the early stages providing them with an architectural rendering, costs estimates and samples of materials and colors so the business operators are ready when they apply for the City’s incentives money. I expect Jump Start will soon be expanded, with UEZ assistance, within the Town Center and also will be made available to merchants located on other parts of Broadway.
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Marketing and Merchandising. I expect that early this summer the BEDC and the BTCMC, with the help of the UEZ, will sponsor workshops on these vital subjects for merchants in the Town Center and Bergen Point Village. All of the merchants attending the workshops will get free telephone consultations for one year from the experts giving the workshops. Three of them will also be selected for special, intensive on-site assistance. If these workshops prove successful-- as I expect-- then the program will be repeated and expanded.
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Niche Marketing. In downtown after downtown, strong niches have proven to be the most effective way for merchants to deal with malls, big boxes and other retail 900 lb gorillas, because they act as de facto specialized shopping centers that are strong destinations. The Town Center has several strong niches that need better organizing. The BTCMC already has done a number of niche advertisements. I expect a substantial increase in this program to be unveiled soon, with many more ads.
O’Connor: We are also working on larger scale efforts to revitalize the Broadway Corridor and keep it as the center of our community. Those efforts include:
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Redevelopment. We are hoping to get a major project done in the Town Center that will provide a significant number of new market-rate residential units, 50,000 SF of Class-A retail space -- the kind that quality retailers absolutely require -- and about 20,000 SF of badly needed public space. I am hopeful that the first phase of this project, which will be along Broadway, can be completed about the same time as the retail project on Rte 440 is finished. We also expect that a number of smaller infill projects will happen and they also will enhance Town Center’s power as a destination.
The Town Center is a mature and fairly dense urban environment. It is hard to find viable redevelopment sites. When we do, we have to make the most of them. While the Town Center may only be able to accommodate a small portion of the commercial development that Bayonne will experience in coming years, it still can have enough redevelopment to assure its future growth and prosperity.
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Making The Town Center A Special Place. One of our major goals is to make the Town Center into Bayonne’s Central Social District (CSD), i.e., the special public place in town where everyone comes to spend quality time with their loved ones. They are also places where people go to see and be seen and where the principal entertainment is people-watching.
I know that the BTCMC’s staff have been hard at work branding the Town Center as “the heart of Bayonne.” Establishing this function has allowed many downtowns to prosper -- even with millions of square feet of malls and big boxes nearby. Being quaint and charming is a real asset. The street improvements consequently help us establish this function. As do the façade improvements. Many of our events, such as the Christmas activities, Mother’s Day promotion, film festival and car show also help establish the Town Center as the CSD. But, the Town Center needs more. In particular, there is a need for a large public gathering space to hold major events. There is also a strong interest in bringing into the Town Center some really special activities. For example, last Fall the idea of opening a portable ice skating rink during the winter months was seriously explored. Unfortunately, the costs were prohibitive. But that exercise does give you some idea of what we are looking for.
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