Mayor: Area 5 Development 'Monumental' In Borough's 'Resurgence'

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich made “commencement of construction in the first half of 2012” on the 16 acres of vacant property just south of the George Washington Bridge—known today as Redevelopment Area 5—a major focus of in November.

“I refused to allow the project to go forward for the sake of starting until I was satisfied that the community was delivered amenities and a development worthy of the Borough of Fort Lee,” Sokolich said during the campaign. “After painstaking negotiation over the past several months, we are about to arrive.”

And while the borough hasn’t fully arrived just yet, it took a major step Monday, when the for the roughly eight-acre East parcel of the redevelopment area, 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.

Sokolich told Patch Tuesday that he was "pleased with" and "excited about" the board’s decision, but that he was approaching it with “guarded optimism.”

“Guarded because obviously we’re going to have to continue to monitor this,” Sokolich said. “But I think Fort Lee took a monumental step in its resurgence as the envy of Bergen County.”

While critics have said the project will only add to traffic congestion in the borough, especially during peak hours, and questioned everything from the impact on property values and already overcrowded schools, to the tax burden on current residents and the height of the buildings, supporters have argued that development will give Fort Lee the downtown it has long been lacking and result in the infusion of millions of dollars into the local economy.

Sokolich acknowledged that the size of the buildings may “intimidate people initially,” but he also said, “If it’s done in the right way, this is Fort Lee’s resurgence to put us back at the status that we belong at.”

“This is not just about brick and mortar,” Sokolich said, adding that he was “proud” of the Planning Board.

“We asked them in a matter of 90 days to absorb everything that we’ve been doing five hours a day for the last two years,” he said. “It’s amazing to me that they were able to deal with that.”

In January 2011, but said an agreement among the borough, FLRA and Tucker Development Corporation—the developer of the West parcel—was “on the horizon.”

In April, the and paving the way for the process to begin.

Sokolich called it “an historic [evening].”

And in December, as borough officials joined representatives from another developer at a —the first new high-rise project in the borough in 22 years—Sokolich referred to “that area just across the street,” promising, “We’re going to continue to go on as aggressive a path as we possibly can to get this 46-year-old vacant parcel of property online.”

The next step in getting Redevelopment Area 5 online is for the Planning Board to consider the “completeness” of Tucker’s application for the West parcel, a mixed-use plan that includes an additional 475 high-rise residential units, a hotel, 175,000 square feet of retail space and another, larger movie theater. The Planning Board will review Tucker’s application at its meeting on April 9.

“Once they’re deemed complete, they’ll then be able to schedule at least a couple meetings, and then they’ll take it from there,” Sokolich said, adding that there are likely to be several public hearings on Tucker’s plan, similar to the process FLRA’s proposal went through.

“There’s no one more nervous, and no one more interested in seeing this go through and have the right impact than [me],” Sokolich said.