Mayor Ravi S. Bhalla and the City of Hoboken today announced the final draft concept design for the City’s fourth resiliency park at 800 Monroe St. The draft concept includes dog runs, passive lawn space, native gardens, a pedestrian plaza, tennis courts, water spray feature, fitness equipment, and a protected bike lane as part of the City’s green circuit, as well as above and below ground infrastructure capable of detaining up to 430,000 gallons of stormwater to mitigate area flooding.
"Today marks a significant milestone for our community as we unveil the final concept design for the Resiliency Park at 800 Monroe Street.” said Mayor Bhalla. “This innovative project represents our commitment to combating rainfall flooding and also symbolizes our dedication to creating vibrant open spaces for our residents. The park will seamlessly integrate resiliency measures with community amenities, reinforcing our City's strength in the face of growing climate impacts. I thank the thousands of residents for providing feedback so we can create our fourth resiliency park to provide dual amenities – flood resiliency and open space – for our community.”
The final draft concept design locates a public plaza with plantings, seating, and shade along Eighth Street. Three tennis courts are near the southern portion of the park adjacent to fitness equipment, and dog runs for large and small dogs. The northernmost part of the park is comprised of experiential gardens, multi-use lawn space for active and passive play, and a water spray feature. The park’s features will be connected by a series of curved pathways that create meandering walking routes and establish greater separation between each park use. A curved shade trellis that would provide partial coverage is over many of the park’s walkways and plazas. While pickleball courts were previously considered as an amenity at this park, the design team will now seek to integrate additional pickleball courts at the Multi-Service Center based on resident feedback.
The park’s concept design also anticipates the potential for transportation improvements to the surrounding streets, including the installation of a two-way bikeway on the park’s west side along Jackson Street as part of the City’s Green Circuit, the conversion of Eighth Street between Monroe and Jackson Streets to a pedestrian-oriented shared street, and vision-zero intersection improvements.
The 800 Monroe Resiliency Park project launched in December of 2021 following the historic land swap agreement with Ironstate in which the city acquired the property originally slated for residential development. Over a nearly 12-month long public planning process, the City’s project consultant, AECOM, created the final concept design based on resident input gathered through community and stakeholder meetings and online surveys.
The park at 800 Monroe St. will utilize up to $15 million in community benefit payments from the 930 Monroe St. redevelopment project to offset a significant portion of the construction and design costs.
The park will become Hoboken’s fourth resiliency park, in addition to the current Southwest Resiliency Park, Seventh and Jackson Resiliency Park, and ResilienCity Park (formerly known as the Northwest Resiliency Park). Together, when complete, the parks will be able to withhold approximately 3.4 million gallons of rainwater during severe rainstorms.
For more information on 800 Monroe Resiliency Park and to view the presentation on the final concept design, go to hobokennj.gov/800monroe.
