Central Park in Fort Lee: Open Space the Focus of Redevelopment 5 Hearing

The talk was about plants Monday night when the Fort Lee Planning Board focused the bulk of its fifth public hearing on the vast open space proposed for The Center at Fort Lee project.

“This park is a gem, and it’s the centerpiece,” said landscape architect Tom Bauer.

Bauer was inspired by Central Park and wants to create a similar topography in Fort Lee with various textures and types of vegetation. A mix of evergreen and deciduous trees, from Bruce Reynolds Boulevard to Central Road, would create an attractive backdrop around the redevelopment site, he said.

Highlighting the 1.7-acre park would be a two-level pond system fed by a rain garden, a sustainable storm water management technique.

The $500 million mixed-use project would also include high-end retail shops and a 7,000-square-foot restaurant, a gourmet food market, a refreshment kiosk, a movie theater and museum, a 4-star hotel and two luxury 47-story residential towers with stunning views of the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River and the New York City skyline.

Acknowledging Fort Lee’s storied film history, Bauer said a proposed theater plaza is in perfect scale with the urban streetscape in the area and could be transformed into a “Hollywood Walk” with textured pavers.

For those who want to reduce their carbon footprint, bike racks would be found throughout The Center—near the restaurant, the kiosk, the northern side of the theater and at both entrances of the park.

While the discussion of the park went on for hours Monday, some residents raised strong concerns about parking. Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates (FLRA) attorney James Demetrakis stressed that the borough intends to build a 60- to 75-space parking garage for merchants and people in the area prior to construction of the park.

The evening’s presentations didn’t sit well with resident Jerry Kray.

“I’m envisioning a real mess here in the future,” Kray said. “Fort Lee is a small town. It’s a suburban town. We are going to create another borough or part of Manhattan, and it’s going to take away all of the charm that Fort Lee has now.”

The board won’t stop until they have identified and helped create a more palatable situation, Planning Board Chairman Herbert Greenberg said.  

Until Monday, the focus of the public hearings had been on FLRA’s plans for the East parcel of Redevelopment Area 5, or roughly half of the 16-acre area. But officials said more information was needed on the application submitted by Tucker Development Corp. for the western half of the job. A public hearing on Tucker’s application was rescheduled for April 2 at 6 p.m. at the .