Board Accepts Development Plans For Western Half Of 'Area 5'

It will be another two weeks before Tucker Development Corporation’s site plan for the western half of Redevelopment Area 5 begins to be fully scrutinized, but the developer successfully completed the necessary first step Monday, as the Fort Lee Planning Board unanimously accepted its mixed-use plan for the roughly eight-acre parcel, or Phase 2 of the project.

The Planning Board also set three public hearing dates, in addition to a tentative fourth.

“We’re ready as soon as you’re ready,” said William F. Harrison, the attorney for Tucker. “Ideally we’d like to start on April 23.”

Janet Cooney, who served as acting board chairwoman Monday in the absence of chairman Herbert Greenberg and vice chairman Steven Sakin, told Harrison to have his witnesses ready as developer Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates (FLRA) did during its series of public hearings leading up to .

“They gave us a list of when their witnesses would be anticipated as coming or chronologically having to come,” Cooney said. “I would request that you do the same thing.”

At a , officials said more information was needed on the application submitted by Tucker for the western half of the job, but Harrison addressed each item requested by the board’s consultants Monday to their apparent satisfaction.

Included among those concerns, for example, was “ongoing discussion between FLRA, Tucker and the borough concerning how waste water is going to be handled,” Harrison said.

A lot of what the board required of Tucker was procedural, such as submitting applications to state and county authorities, and Harrison asked for and was granted a waiver to submit additional information on many of the requests “before the board’s first hearing on the application.”

Other pieces of information previously requested by the board and its consultants included revised right-of-way lines, alternate roadway configuration, elimination of some street parking along the eastern side of Lemoine Avenue and whether additional fire hydrants will be needed along Lemoine Avenue and Bruce Reynolds Boulevard, among other things, all of which Harrison said will be addressed by experts and witnesses during the upcoming public hearings.

The Planning Board approved FLRA’s plan on March 26, including two 47-story towers with 902 luxury residential units, a 1.7-acre public park, a restaurant and a small movie theater, among other amenities. Tucker’s application for the West parcel includes an additional 475-unit residential high-rise, a hotel and about 175,000 square feet of retail space. The overall development project on the 16 acres of land just south of George Washington Bridge that have sat vacant for more than 45 years is estimated at about $1 billion.

The board set the following public hearings Monday on Tucker’s site plan for the West parcel:

• Monday, April 23 (regular meeting)
• Monday, May 7 (regular meeting)
• Monday, May 14 (tentative special meeting)
• Monday, May 21 (regular meeting

All of the meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m.—unlike the FLRA public hearings, which started at 6 p.m.—and take place in the second-floor meeting room at the .

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich called it “an aggressive schedule.”

The board also formally adopted the resolution approving FLRA’s site plan Monday through “memorialization.”