Smart Growth Award-Winner Wesmont Station Opens

May 23rd, 2016 by Elaine Clisham

Photo courtesy NJ Transit.

Ten years after New Jersey Future presented the ambitious plan for Wesmont Station with a Smart Growth Award, and at least four years after most of the associated new residential development was completed, the new transit stop intended as its anchor has finally opened.

The new stop, on NJ Transit’s Bergen line, allows riders to connect to New York either via a change in Secaucus to go into Penn Station or a change in Hoboken to the PATH network. Early riders from the station have noted their commutes, which used to take more than an hour by bus, have been shortened to approximately 35 minutes.

Between 2006 and 2012, developers completed an ambitious schedule of more than 700 residential units, 130,000 square feet of retail space, some office space, a public square, a community center, a school, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure — all in anticipation of a transit asset that would take another four years to materialize. Demand for these units demonstrated clearly the value of proximity to transit, even future transit: News reports have noted that rents and purchase prices for homes near the station have been as much as 20 percent higher than comparable properties further away.

The station was built as a public-private partnership, with developers contributing $12 million towards its $18-million construction price tag.