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I am all for spaying and neutering JC children so as to bring down the population. I have seen "strays" running all over Hamilton Park and knocking over garbage cans.

I am a dog owner myself, and don't get me wrong, I love my dog, but a lot of people in this city are dog crazy, and it's so annoying. I much rather have some open grass where HUMANS can throw a football around or something, than use the space for a dog run.

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my dog beat up your honor student!

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Totally agree and I wish these apartment mega-structures invest in a SUPER indoor / outdoor play area for kids.

I'm sorry, but people who compare dogs to children are idiots. A dog is a domesticated animal, a child is a person. All analogies should stop there.

(Same goes for cats or any other pet)

To all sides of what ever whine you stand for...

... A "put up with it or move to the suburbs" apologia is no substitute for good urban planning... and good urban planning for those of us who have chosen fully and knowingly to live in an urban environment...

Ciao for this thread!

Will you all please stop your wining! Yes, JC is going to get more crowded and it's the price we will have to pay for our fair city's rediscovery.

If you're all wondering what downtown is going to look like in five years, all you need to do is look across two rivers to the other side of Manhattan at downtown Brooklyn. Crowded streets, crowded subways, crowded stores. It's a urban environment and the people who will live here, will be choosing to live here because of these things. Either get used to it or move to the suburbs.

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I've seen those guys. They travel in a pack. And they really are strange. Fortunately the majority of PATH riders fall within a spectrum that would be classified as normal.

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Imagine Atrium is terribly disappointing.

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Well, our esteemed governor could leverage the state's 50% stake in the Port Authority to expand the PATH system. Or our esteemed Senators could obtain federal transportation funds to pay for PATH expansion projects. Or our esteemed state legislators could allocate more funding to transportation. So I would suggest starting by contacting them, and voting for candidates who are willing to make the necessary improvements.


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The retail amenities will come when the population can support them. Low density development and large retailers are a contradiction.

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I think one thing that's really holding up development is that everyone assumes all kind of wonderful shops are going to go into the lobby of Grove Pointe and somewhere in Liberty Harbor North.

I don't know if our area can support a bookstore much larger than Imagine Atrium (which has a surprisingly good collection), but it certainly should be able to support a decent drug store.

oy, not to state the obvious again, but how in the hell are all of these people supposed to commute to nyc?? my ride this morning already involved being pinned against 5 strange men.

and it would be nice if jc's basic necessities started catching up with the influx of people... decent schools of course, but how about a 24 hour drug store, bookstore, etc.

Not to mention more cars! If anyone has noticed every street is jam packed with traffic every morning and afternoon. Downtown is not the only neighborhood affected. Lafayette is getting hit hard with people either leaving downtown or going into Downtown. More development in Jersey City doesn't improve the quality of life for the people already living here. We deal with the aftermath of the poor planning of the "Planning Board and others"! Not everyone that moves into these developments jump on a path train they also commute on Bus or cars!

COLD HARD TRUTH for all these people moving to JC who are used to living in rural areas. You are moving to a city! DEAL WITH IT. If you have a huge dog gaggle of children, don't move into a highrise apartment building and expect the city to figure out where your dog devil's offspring should take a crap.

Maybe this is has to do with editing, or the lifestage and interests of the reporter, but I think it's interesting that the article talks about what the developers ought to do for the dogs who will live in the complex and says nothing about the children.

There probably will be a little closet-size playroom, but the article doesn't mention anything about an outdoor playground; a daycare facility; efforts to subsidize Waterfront, OLC, the River School or Lipton; or efforts to work with P.S. 3, P.S. 16 or Learning Community Charter School.

And I understand that a lot of people hate children and that maybe 99 percent of Jersey City should be child free, but the article doesn't even say whether the complex will be child free or not.

Rant all you want about dogs, the fact is people will move here with dogs and unfortunately, we have to deal with the demographics.

Telling people to go to the suburbs if they want to have a dog is the functional equivalent of saying that the rest of us should go live in the burbs if we want new greenspace developed. Get real.

Diverting some of those developer dollars into providing necessary amenities is not unrealistic. At least it's not coming off the back of local taxpayers.

More dog runs for everybody! We need more dog runs. I'm telling you, bulldoze all the parking lots in jersey city and build dog runs over them. Who needs schools. They are just wasted space where dog runs should be placed.

COLD HARD TRUTH for all these people moving to JC who are used to living in rural areas. You are moving to a city! DEAL WITH IT. If you have a huge dog, don't move into a highrise apartment building and expect the city to figure out where your dog should take a crap.

Too late Vigilante... almost no one seemed to give a @#!@ more than six years ago when the Downtown from Grove Street on East was almost uniformly designated as high density in the Master Plan.

Actually what we're getting is More People AND More Dogs.

More dogs and less people please?

Forseeing a need for a dog run represents some form of glacial recognition by the Planning Board that these mega projects provide for proper amenities so the dog poop doesn't spill over into the streets or other communities.

When the Planning Board begins to see the need for proper greenspace accomodations for people, then that might be something significant. I'm not holding my breath, though.

All the best.

Geoff

No matter how well you dress up Jersey City (Waterfront Development), she will remain a 'hoe' looking to make a quick buck with a cosmetic appearance(City Hall / Developers) !

Ahahahahahahah, Joe panepinto strikes again. Nobody gets approval for a roject like that without making Panepinto a partner. (and Robert Torricelli). I hear the mayor has a peice of this complex waiting for him when he gets out of office. (just like currnent partner Bob Torricelli)

The board voted unanimously (7-0) to allow the rest of the project to go forward, but added some conditions, including creating access to the nearby Marin Boulevard entrance to the PATH and ensuring a dog run is built at the 50 Columbus site.


GP - the Marin Blvd entrance refers to Grove Street. Maybe he does that to remind us that the JC Reporter is not The New Yorker.

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Yeah but he said it a few times in the article.

Planning board - what about stipulating via contract, that the dog run MUST accomodate 'x' amount of dogs, the dimensions - length and minimum size, the soil type, the necessary add-on like water, shade etc. (they should contact parkman)

If the planning board don't pull their 'finger out' the developers will have a dog run the size of 2 parking bays on concrete with no public access and HP / VVP will be swamped with new dog owners.

This better get sorted out fast, otherwise it will be a never ending topic on JClist in months to come, when the building is complete and residents move in.

It is getting to the stage where every new building complex should be required to have a dog run like parking!

Didn't you see the plans - a five block overhead people mover is being built - tentatively called the Fulopian tube - to get people to Exchange Place. No, wait, that was a dream I had. I think it's a typo.

Just curious - are there building specs for dog runs. Are these places really for exercising dogs or just dog toilets? That's a lot of apartments plus maybe some of the Grove Pointers will try to use it too. Can too many dogs become a health hazard? Will children's play areas also be required?

I'm lost, 50 Columbus Drive, where these two 48-story towers and the new Hotel will be build is half less than a block from the Grove PATH Station & the beginning of Newark Avenue -- how is it close to Exchange place? Sure they are only 3 or 4 blocks from the Exchange Place PATH Station but the Grove PATH Station's new entrence is almost under them -- and you can get both trains -- one to the WTC or the other to Midtown unlike just the WTC train at Exchange Place.

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Two 48-story buildings a go

Planning Board demands dog run for phase II of Columbus Towers

Ricardo Kaulessar -- Hudson Reporter -- 08/03/2007

The Jersey City Planning Board approved the second phase of 50 Columbus Drive at their meeting on July 24. While the first phase, a 35-story tower, is near completion, the second phase will include two 48-story towers and a hotel.

The project, also known as Columbus Towers, is located on a long stretch of Christopher Columbus Drive between Marin Boulevard and Warren Street, in the Exchange Place area.

The site is being developed by PKG Associates, a company operated by local attorney and builder Joseph Panepinto in partnership with Hoboken-based Applied Companies.

Upon completion, 50 Columbus Drive's three towers will house 942 rental units, a 144-room hotel, 1120 parking spaces, and over 12,000 square feet of ground floor retail.

The first phase of the project, a 35-story tower with 392 units and 804 parking spaces, is near completion. Rentals are scheduled to start this month.

The second phase will be two 48-story towers with a total of 550 units, the hotel, retail and 316 parking spaces.

The board voted unanimously (7-0) to allow the rest of the project to go forward, but added some conditions, including creating access to the nearby Marin Boulevard entrance to the PATH and ensuring a dog run is built at the 50 Columbus site.

Where's the dog run?

At the meeting, several representatives for the project made a presentation of the 50 Columbus preliminary site plan to the Planning Board.

A preliminary site plan is used for new construction and additions located on land zoned for commercial and residential use. Any project built in a redevelopment area, as is the case with 50 Columbus Drive (in Exchange Place North), usually gets first approval and later comes back in front of the board for final approval.

After the presentation, the board approved the project with six conditions that have to be met by the developers.

Among them was putting in a dog run.

Board Commissioner Roseanne Petruzelli pointed out there was no place within the site plan for a dog run. Board Chairman Michael Ryan said there is supposed to be at least one dog run on the premises.

At the meeting, the developers' attorney Nevis McCann claimed 50 Columbus will be "pet friendly," when asked whether or not pets will be allowed.

But McCann said there was no room for dog run.

"The dogs will have to walk the streets like everyone else," he said. And another of the developers' attorneys, Francis Schiller, said a surface parking lot designed for the second phase of the project would be built in the location where the dog run was to be placed.

But the developers' representatives later agreed they will look for space on the site for a dog run.

Also, the board insisted upon an entrance from the lobby of the hotel that will allow guests and residents of 50 Columbus to gain easier access to the Exchange Place PATH station.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com