Hoboken Ponders Eminent Domain Purchase For Resiliency Park

Eminent domain and an $18.3 million combined purchase price.

Are these caveats worth the benefits that Hoboken’s long-touted “resiliency park” project would bring?

This will be the question that the Hoboken City Council faces on Wednesday when they vote on whether to authorize the use of eminent domain and a multi-million bond issuance, all with the goal of turning the six-acre, undeveloped BASF property into a large “resiliency park” with more than a million gallons of flood mitigation capacity.

In addition to the resiliency park, the project would also include a municipal parking garage, potentially with rooftop recreation or other public amenities, Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s office stated in a release.

The property is currently owned by BASF (previously Henkel/Cognis), and the project is one of three resiliency parks planned as part of the municipal Rebuild by Design plan.

The Hoboken City Council previously authorized the use of eminent domain to acquire the BASF property for open space, as well as authorizing the city’s application for low-interest funding from the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust (NJEIT) to acquire the property.

“This six-acre property is the City’s last remaining option for acquiring such a large amount of contiguous land for open space, and it would provide Hoboken with a unique opportunity to address three of our most pressing challenges – flooding, open space, and parking,” said Mayor Dawn Zimmer. “Creating Hoboken’s largest park – the same size as Pier A – would provide much-needed open space in western Hoboken, take pressure off our other overcrowded parks, and complement our flood resiliency strategy by being designed to hold at least 1 million gallons of stormwater runoff. It would also add parking capacity by creating Hoboken’s first municipal garage in northwest Hoboken.”

Photo courtesy of the City of Hoboken

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