Seven Innovative Projects Win Smart Growth Awards

June 1st, 2009 by Teri Jover

Award-Winning Projects Exemplify New Jersey’s Smart Growth Leadership, Creative Use of State’s Assets

Seven projects, ranging from a town-gown redevelopment in Gloucester County to a “green” building in Morristown, have been selected to receive 2009 Smart Growth Awards from New Jersey Future.

Winners are selected from a statewide public nomination process by an independent jury of professional developers, architects, planners and redevelopment experts. Since 2002, New Jersey Future has honored 53 projects. The majority have been downtown and neighborhood revitalization projects (16) and vision/redevelopment plans (15). Others have included housing and community support projects (13), educational facilities (4) and arts centers (2). On June 3, New Jersey Future will honor the Smart Growth Award-winners at a reception at the Newark Club. The winners are:

The Broad Street Station and Living Downtown Redevelopment Plans in Newark represent a comprehensive strategy for revitalizing a strategically located but underutilized transit facility and for using residential conversions as a catalyst for downtown redevelopment.

The Bloomfield Center Redevelopment Plan sets forth a vision for reversing the slow but steady decline of a once-vibrant downtown by establishing a comprehen¬sive set of principles for economic, social and environmental sustainability in designated redevelopment and rehabilitation areas.

Two honored projects in Camden — Fairview Village and the North Camden Neighborhood and Waterfront Park Plan — exemplify how a combination of creativity and broad public participation can set the wheels in motion for transforming urban neighborhoods from areas of neglect to sources of community pride.

A unique example of sustainable design and implementation, 14 Maple Avenue in Morristown boasts a multi-functional landscaped green roof covered with vegetation, photovoltaic panels that harness solar energy to supplement the building’s electrical requirements and the largest “biowall” in the United States — a three-story vertical garden that connects to the HVAC system and helps purify indoor air.

The Avenue Development and The Marketplace at Eden has introduced a popular market and café to the central business district of South Orange, soon to be accompanied by 79 condominiums, all within easy walking distance of the village train station.

Rowan Boulevard represents a community-university partnership between Glassboro and Rowan University that will turn the downtown into the first “town and gown” destination in South Jersey, creating a walkable community for residents, students and business owners.

These Smart Growth Award-winners offer real-world examples of projects that use New Jersey’s assets — mature infrastructure, an extensive transit network, accessible downtowns, an interested and engaged citizenry — to maximum advantage. They demonstrate the kind of vision, creativity and community spirit necessary to move a worthy development or redevelopment project from the drawing board to successful completion.

The Smart Growth Awards are judged against the following criteria:

They are located near existing development and infrastructure;
They increase the range of housing options;
They create or enhance a vibrant mix of uses (residential, retail, office);
They protect open space, farmland and critical environmental areas;
They create or enhance choices for getting around;
They create walkable spaces, designed for personal interaction; and
They respect community character, design and historic features.

Detailed descriptions of previous winners are in the Smart Growth Awards section of our website.

If you have any questions about this issue of Future Facts, please contact New Jersey Future Managing Director Teri Jover (tjovernjfuture dot org) or Senior Communications Consultant Rick Sinding (rsindingnjfuture dot org) .