New Features Highlighted At Growing Park In Jersey City's Bergen-Lafayette Section

JERSEY CITY, NJ — Jersey City's growing Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood has a park that's growing with it, with several upgrades, new features, and the transformation of a former "unslightly" car lot.

Jersey City City Council members, the Department of Infrastructure, the Jersey City Parks Coalition, and community members came to open renovated areas last week. Phase 2 of renovations will start in fall.

Among the changes to the park, the city renovated underutilized lots and made a cut-through street more walkable near Fairmount and Summit avenues.

The street leads into "a thriving park and playground with amenities that will attract families of all ages to Ward F’s newest public park space."

Designed with full community input, the park improvement project includes a new playground, benches, and green areas with tree plantings. A new fence now lines the park’s perimeter after residents expressed the need for a barrier along Summit Avenue. The project also widened the sidewalk around the park, all while maintaining traffic circulation and existing parking spaces.

“This lot is unrecognizable from 2019 when we first envisioned creating a safe and accessible park where none previously existed,” said Mayor Fulop. “Fairmount Park embodies our broader ambitions of identifying innovative approaches to finding solutions to help this great community reach its fullest potential. We made the necessary investments to significantly improve our parks and open space networks citywide, which have become critical assets to our community and everyday quality of life.”

The city purposefully reconstructed the area to make the park much safer and more accessible to residents, furthering the Fulop Administration’s goals of promoting a healthier, active lifestyle, the city said.

The city recently acquired a car storage lot adjacent to the park to further expand the brand new park in Bergen-Lafayette by 40 percent for the second and final phase of construction. Phase 2 is currently in the design process as the city hosts public meetings. Construction is scheduled to start this fall.

The entire design acts in furtherance of the City’s Vision Zero and sustainability goals.

“On behalf of the Jersey City Parks Coalition, we would like to thank Mayor Fulop, Director Barkha Patel, and Vernon Richardson for actively engaging with the residents and community over the last three and a half years to transform this small, underutilized traffic island into a wonderful pocket park,” said Paula Mahayosnand, President of the Jersey City Parks Coalition.

Following the City’s successful pilot programs from 2019 through 2020, local residents enjoyed the new park so much that it has remained ever since as the city made improvements and expansions over the past two years, the city said.

“We are always looking for creative ways to build more parks and green space in the city for our
residents,” added Barkha Patel, Director of Jersey City’s Department of Infrastructure. “This project gave us an opportunity to combine various initiatives within the department related to the advancement of active transportation, sustainability, and innovation in the public realm.”

The city conducted multiple traffic studies to ensure that removing the two small segments of roadway will have minimal to no impact on the surrounding streets and will not remove any existing parking. The park renovation and expansion project also incorporates stormwater permeability.

In 2022, Jersey City advanced dozens of park projects ranging from major open space upgrades to creating brand new parks to increase public open space, such as City Hall Park and Courthouse Park, as a part of the Year of Open Space initiative.

The $500,000 park improvement project was partially funded by a $100,000 Blue Zones grant. The process of the entire Fairmount Park improvement project, from start to finish, will be published by Blue Zones to be used as case studies for what other municipalities around the nation can do to achieve similar goals.

The city secured a grant for the project by the Made to Move program, funded by Blue Zones, and the Degree Foundation. Jersey City is one of five municipalities nationwide awarded the grant to fund projects that promote healthy living and active transportation and serve as a model for other communities.