Asbury Park Is Having A Moment

http://ww.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/nyregion/asbury-park-long-neglected-shows-signs-of-rejuvention.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone-share&...

Asbury Park Boardwalk
Asbury Park, New Jersey
nytimes.com

Hello Everyone:

Today we are going to spend the time at the Jersey shore-the Asbury Park Boardwalk in New Jersey.  If you are a Bruce Springsteen or, at least, familiar with music, you are familiar with his adopted musical hometown.  In November 2000, Mr. Springsteen sat down to write "My City in Ruins" for Christmas show to promote the city's revitalization. At the time, his beloved adopted city succumbed a significant amount of blight. However, Charles V. Bagli recently reported that stories of Asbury Park's demise are premature in his article, "Asbury Park, Long Neglected Shows Signs of Rejuvenation," for the New York Times.  As the song"Atlantic City," from the great album Nebraska (1982), But maybe everything that dies someday comes back, perhaps as Mr. Springsteen observed during a performance at the Wonder Bar, Maybe Asbury Park is back?

https://youtu.be/ck3wa-VlsZM

Bathers at Asbury Park in the 1950s
drakkar91.com

Is Asbury Park back?  This is the question on the minds of New Jersey beach goers for decades, while most Jersey shore beach towns have thrived.  There are still plenty of signs of abandonment and neglect but, as Mr. Bagli writes, "...after decades of false starts, Asbury is finally showing signs of a rejuvenation.  In the early oughts, knots of summer visitors had free run of the beach, boardwalk pavilions were shuttered, and downtown buildings were boarded up.  Now, this bleak picture has been replaced with scenes of "...the mile-long beach is packed with gay residents who have restored some of the city's grand Victorian houses, beachgoeres swathed in tattoos, African-Americans and Latino residents, families, retirees, young Orthodox Jews, Christians conducting a mass baptism in the ocean and, at the north end Asbury, surfers."

https://youtu.be/s-LIEr43_wk

Stone Pony
Asbury Park, New Jersey
ticketsinventory.com

The shops dotting the boardwalk are open and filled with customers.  Downtown Asbury has become a year-round foodie destination.  The Stone Pony, made famous by one of New Jersey's favorite son, is host to even greater rock concerts and singer Lorde recorded "Yellow Flicker Beat," for the Hunger Games series at one of the three recording studios.

It's finally turning a corner, enthuses Jennifer Lampert who moved to Asbury last year to open Festhalle & Biergarten, in a former downtown industrial building.  Ms. Lampert continues, It's got all the elements you could find in a big city, but it's a small town by the sea.  It's a liberal, open-minded, come-as-you-are-kind of town.  Despite Ms. Lampert optimism, there are still not a lot of retail businesses in downtown.  However, iStar, the third master developer in as many decades, has four projects ready for empty lots in the seaside redevelopment area.

Downtown Asbury Park
asburyparkchamber.com

  In, what iStar is trumpeting as "a pivotal moment," the developers will ask for public approval for a proposed 16-story luxury hotel and condominium on "an Ocean Avenue foundation where two previous developers failed."  The excited iStar chairman Jay Sugarman told Mr. Bagli,

We believe in Asbury Park's potential...I want it to be a cool, creative community where there's always something going on, where there are always interesting people to run into.  To be able to do that in a beachfront environment is the best of worlds.

Asbury Park Boardwalk kiddie rides, c.1955
dornsclassicalimage.com

Asbury Park's comeback is more about demographic trends and a generational interest in living in urban areas than an antiquated eighties master planned city that failed to launch.  The gay and lesbian community have, by-and-large, drifted to Asbury as less expensive option to Fire Islands and the Hamptons.  Great rail service has made it more accessible from New York City and Northern New Jersey.  The solid core commercial buildings of downtown Asbury has made it attractive to developers.

James W. Hughes, the dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University told Charles V. Bagli,

All these factors came together...Great buildings downtown.  The gay community was in there very early because didn't care about the school system.  Now you have millennials suffering fatigue from being raised in the suburbs.  The shore still has magic.

Asbury Splash Park
funnewjersey.com

Despite past disappointments, there is a palpable sense of optimism among officials, escapees from New York, entrepreneurs, and long time residents.  The feeling is that now is Asbury's time to shine.  Retired AT&T executive and Asbury native Yvonne Clayton bubbled, This is really an exciting time to be here.  Asbury Park has experienced boom times before.  Since the late nineteenth century, Asbury was a popular seaside resort with about 200 hotels and festive atmosphere along the boardwalk, which stretched from the Casino at the south end to the Paramount Theater and convention hall on the north side.

In the sixties, the city's fortunes began to slowly decline, exacerbated by racial tensions from which the city has never fully recovered.  Developer Carter Sackman told Mr. Bagli, When I came down here from New York 11 or 12 years ago...close to 90 percent of the central business district was boarded up.  No cars.  Tumbleweeds.  Today, Mr. Sackman owns a majority of downtown buildings and convert the former Steinbach department store into apartments.  His daughter Morgan, is following suit, renovating the former downtown vaudeville theater, the Savoy, into a performance with 64 small apartments for musicians and artists.

Restaurants along the Asbury Park Boardwalk
boblucky.com

Charles V. Bagli writes about Steve and Shanti Mignona, a couple who lived and worked in the restaurant industry in Brooklyn before relocating to Asbury to find a more affordable place to open their own place.  He writes, "They considered Beacon, N.Y., in the Hudson River Valley, but last year settled on Asbury there was a larger community of artists and young entrepreneurs."  This past November, the opened Talula's in downtown.  Steve Mignona happily told Mr. Bagli, We've been in the green every month...Part of it is the community supporting us.

A supportive community aside, unemployment remains persistently high in a city of about 16,000.  Mr. Bagli reports, "The percentage of people living below the poverty line, 34.2 percent, is slightly down from a decade ago, as is the crime rate.  And the main route through the city's largely African-American neighborhood in southwest Asbury Park looks tired and and spare."  Nevertheless, 22 shops have opened in the downtown since 2008 and boardwalk business produced $30 million in sales in 2014.  Waterfront parking fees rocketed to $1.7 million in 2014, from zero in 2008.

Asbury Park Boardwalk
Fourth of July 2010
prweb.com

Another challenge facing Asbury Park is the lack of a large commercial base to drive jobs creation.  However, Ms. Clayton (now a council member) expects developers to hire locally for new commercial and residential developments.  The beachfront revival is finally taking shape after nearly 30 years of spasmodic developments.  In a move that could be considered truly reducing the city to ruins, initial plans called for demolishing the amusements, restaurants, clubs like the Saint and the hallowed Stone Pony-the musical heritage so important to Asbury's identity, according to city historian Werner Baumgartner.  The developer chosen by the city in 1984 ended up declaring bankruptcy in 1992, tying up the land in litigation for almost a decade.  Mr. Bagli writes, "A second developer, Asbury Partners, picked up the baton in 2001.  Builders erected roughly 300 townhouses and condominiums at the north and south ends of the boardwalk, before that developer succumbed to the recession in 2007.

"Paradise by the 'C'"
Asbury Park, New Jersey
free-stock-illustration.com

Asbury Partners's lender, iStar, picked up the project and became the developers.  Company founder Jay Sugarman, took a personal interest in Asbury, hiring architect Gary Handel and designer Anda Andrei, the creative forces behind Ian Schrager's hotels.  The boardwalk was taken over by Madison Marquette, which resurrected the pavilions, brought in restaurants and shops; took over operations at the Stone Pony and Wonder Bar.

Charles V. Bagli writes, "iStar created three new parking lots this year to handle what is no 1.5 million annual visitors...Last year, iStar completed 28 townhomes that sold out in two days at an average price of $500,000.  The company now aims to build 200 units a year on the waterfront."

Wonder Bar
Asbury Park, New Jersey
asburyboardwalk.com

 The company has also landscaped many of the bleak vacant lots along the beachfront, has begun converting a vacant Salvation Army residence hall into chic hotel with rooftop event space, and has plans to renovate the Asbury Lanes bowling alley.  "IStar has started work on the Monroe, a 34-unit condominium that won praise from local residents for its stylish design."  However, not everyone is exactly pleased with iStar's decision to bring K. Hovnanian, a national home builder, for a smaller project.  The concern is that the company will destroy Asbury Park's eccentric character.

The developers are adamant that the architecture be varied and, according to senior vice president of land and development Brian Cheripka, it was important to lure a national builder to Asbury.  The company...is committed to preserving the dignity and musical heritage that distinguishes Asbury from just about every other beach town, monochromatic and wealth.

Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band in the seventies
stoneponyonline.com

What is the mystic of Asbury Park?  The chance to live in a beach town without paying a steep price.  Maybe? Could be the "magic in the night,"  Asbury Park certainly has its attractions and this might finally be its big moment.  However, for it to be successful, preserving its musical and eccentric heritage must be balanced out with realistic land use, development, and new construction policies that allow for smart growth.  Also, addressing the needs of long term residents is of paramount importance.  Too often, new development and construction has resulted in elderly and low-income residents being displaced from the only place they call home. It is not enough to cater to one segment of society, iStar and its partners must address the needs of the long term residents.  Whatever the outcome, Asbury Park's future looks like "Paradise by the 'C'".