Jeanne Serrani, owner of the Orange Sanitary Bakery, has been waiting two decades for someone to redevelop Orange Memorial Hospital, which closed in 2005. Her shop on South Essex Street is located one block from the abandoned and overgrown property.
When she heard that a plan was in the works, she welcomed the news. But Serrani is concerned about the size of the new project, which the Planning Board approved in December.
With more than 1,005 new apartments being proposed, Serrani worries that the new developer – SYMREC – is trying to cram too much into an already congested neighborhood.
The lack of parking in the neighborhood has already affected her business, she said.
“Years ago, we were doing much better – we’re doing OK, but it’s not like it used to be,” Serrani said. “People are not going to risk getting a $40 ticket for a $2 loaf of bread.”
In addition to apartments, SYMREC wants to build 30,000 square feet of retail along with an ice skating rink and amphitheater. The plan also includes moving City Hall, currently located on Day Street, into Mary Austen Hall.
The public comment portion of the December Planning Board meeting lasted an hour and during that time about two dozen residents spoke out against the project. One issue that came under scrutiny was the traffic study authored by Dynamic Traffic. The study claimed the new development would have no major impacts on the surrounding neighborhood.
Connor Hughes, project manager at Dynamic Traffic, testified that the new development would only generate 565 new trips in morning hours and 600 new trips in the evening.
“The traffic conditions will remain close to what they are today,” Hughes said. “Even with the number of trips being generated it’s very well dispersed throughout the different intersections.”
But residents claimed that street parking is already a headache – and adding hundreds of more cars will only make matters worse. In October, the Four Oranges detailed the struggle that one homeowner is having living on Lincoln Terrace with her neighbors blocking her driveway on a weekly basis.
Although the public was allowed to ask questions about the project, they were not allowed to interrogate individual witnesses, including the traffic engineer.
Terrence Murray, managing partner at Gateway Merchant Banking, which is one of the investors, was tasked with responding to community members’ concerns. However, Murray didn’t answer questions about how the development would impact the school system or how the arrangement with City Hall would work and whether the city would be paying rent for the new facility at Mary Austin Hall.
The consensus among the residents was that there was a lack of community engagement before the plan was revealed to the public. In 2023, Chris Hartwyk, the city’s business administrator, said at a City Council meeting that there would be a “series of hearings about what should go there.” But these promised hearings never took place.
Despite the opposition to the plan and the lack of answers, the Planning Board approved the project 7-0 with one abstention from Enock Faustin.
The plan to redevelop the hospital site also requires demolishing seven of the nine buildings located on the property. However, Kelly Ruffel, executive director of Preservation New Jersey, claims that city officials may not have followed protocol: they are required to present their plans to demolish the National Register-listed hospital buildings to the local Historic Preservation Commission, she said.
“Technically, the Planning Board is not supposed to schedule an application without first referring it to the HPC,” Ruffel said. “If the Planning Board hasn’t referred the application to the HPC, that’s a problem in process and has to be redone.”
The plan to include City Hall in the redevelopment plan makes the proposal a public-private partnership and requires a Section 106 review, Ruffel said. This means the State Historic Preservation Office needs to approve the plans to demolish the buildings in the historic district. “The developer and the city would have to prove those buildings are not viable,” Ruffel said.
