CLIENT: TOWNSHIP OF BLOOMFIELD

Overview

The Township of Bloomfield is a fully developed, transit-accessible municipality located just west of New York City. Phillips Preiss has provided a full range of planning and redevelopment services to the Township for over two decades. Most recently, Phillips Preiss led the preparation of the 2025 Bloomfield Master Plan, a forward-thinking, community-driven document that was officially adopted in April 2025. The Plan was honored with the 2025 New Jersey Planning Officials Achievement in Planning Award.

Phillips Preiss continues to provide strategic guidance and technical expertise to the Township on its compliance with New Jersey’s affordable housing obligations and various planning efforts. Phillips Preiss has also played a central role in advancing the Township’s redevelopment goals. Over the years, the firm has conducted numerous Area in Need of Redevelopment Studies, prepared Redevelopment Plans, guided implementation strategies, and has advised on open space and development projects.

The Borough of Highlands, located along Sandy Hook Bay and the Shrewsbury River, has a compact main street (Bay Avenue) with small-scale lots anchoring the downtown, ferry service to New York City, a substantial waterfront, and easy access to Atlantic Ocean beaches. However, nearly the entire downtown lies within the FEMA AE flood zone, making ground-floor retail  prohibitively expensive. Many properties were badly damaged by flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and few businesses have reopened. In 2018, the Borough overhauled the downtown zoning, hoping to spur more restaurants, retail, and activity through mixed-use development. However, onerous parking requirements and restrictive height and FAR limits, combined with stricter floodproofing requirements, continued to make it nearly impossible to build a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail. Most recent construction and renovations have been single-family homes with front garages, resulting in less pedestrian activity on downtown sidewalks.

Examples of recent home construction and renovations to place living spaces above the Design Flood Elevation, resulting in a growing “garagescape” along Bay Avenue, the retail spine of Highlands. Some homes have a more friendly appearance than others.

Example of a house with its living areas raised above Design Flood Elevation, with a friendly second floor porch that is linked to the public sidewalk with a prominent staircase.

Through a competitive bidding process, Highlands retained Phillips Preiss to determine if a redevelopment approach could be used to spur new investment across downtown. After careful analysis of existing zoning, built form, building heights, and patterns of recent construction and renovations, the firm suggested a series of dramatic changes. Parking ratios were reduced, FAR was removed as a factor, and maximum permitted building coverage was increased. Most significantly, the firm created an optional height bonus program for several overlay areas where larger-scale new construction could be added downtown without unduly impacting adjoining single-family areas. The two-tiered bonus program awards higher heights in exchange for features that contribute to active, inviting, downtown-style streetscapes, including attractive, landscaped front “pocket parks” or plazas to create “breathing room” along the narrow, constrained Bay Avenue sidewalks and active uses on a floodproofed “Lowest Floor” – either the ground floor or the second floor. The additional heights will allow for more residential units on upper floors, creating more foot traffic and helping support new restaurants and retail.

The bonus program requires that if the active use is provided on the second floor, over an open level of parking, a front porch or deck with a substantial staircase or a series of terraced ramps is required within the front setback to maintain an inviting connection to the public sidewalk. In addition, front setback areas must have porous paving and landscaping for infiltration as well as seating areas to foster activity. The top floor of buildings must be stepped back to help reduce the perceived height and bulk. The Plan was well received and unanimously adopted in May 2022.

Aerial view of downtown Highlands, showing the narrow lots and regular grid of pedestrian-friendly streets.

Client: New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA)

Downtown Raritan Vision Plan

Raritan Vision Plan

Phillips Preiss was part of a project team led by FHI Studio that was selected by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) to prepare a sustainable economic development plan for the Borough of Raritan, New Jersey as part of NJTPA’s Planning for Emerging Centers Program. Conveniently located in Somerset County’s core in central New Jersey, the Borough sought to create a plan that would allow them to maintain and expand existing downtown employment and economic activity, while retaining their historic, small-town character and capitalizing on their highly connected street network and potential waterfront connections to the Raritan River. Phillips Preiss’s primary role was to evaluate economic and market conditions within and around the Borough in order to provide insights and recommendations that would advance the goals of the plan, which presented a community-driven 10-year economic, land use and multi-modal vision for the Borough with a focus on supporting both existing and new residents and businesses. The Raritan Sustainable Economic Development Plan was honored with a 2021 Excellence in Planning Award by the Somerset County Planning Board.

Phillips Preiss worked with the Morris Township Planning Board to plan the redevelopment of the 147-acre former Honeywell International Inc. corporate campus. The work included amending the Land Use Plan Element of the Master Plan to create a new Office and Research Laboratory/Planned Unit Development (OL-40/PUD) designation. The PUD permits a mix of office, laboratory and townhouse uses subject to a series of development standards and contingent upon the submission of a general development plan.

Client: Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERA)

Since 2011, Phillips Preiss has provided ongoing planning consulting services to the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERA). FMERA is the entity responsible for overseeing the redevelopment of Fort Monmouth with an emphasis on job creation, economic development, conservation of natural resources, and housing creation. Phillips Preiss has provided planning advisory services to FMERA including the preparation of redevelopment plans, amendments to the Reuse and Redevelopment Plan, and open space analyses among other tasks.

Client: City of Newark, NJ

Overview

Phillips Preiss has provided redevelopment planning services to the City of Newark for over a decade. The firm has prepared numerous area in need of redevelopment investigations on behalf of the City and advised municipal staff on redevelopment issues. Projects have included sites throughout the downtown and other parts of Newark.

Results

The Prudential Center, a major professional sports arena, was built in an area designated in need of redevelopment by a study prepared by Phillips Preiss. Teachers Village and One Rector Street are also being built in redevelopment areas that were designated based on studies prepared by the firm.

Client: New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC)

Overview

In 2004, the NJMC adopted the Secaucus Transit Village Redevelopment Plan to encourage a transit-oriented mixed-use development in the area surrounding the Secaucus Junction train station. At the same time, a new interchange on the New Jersey Turnpike at Secaucus Junction greatly enhanced the value of the existing warehouse and manufacturing facilities in the area. After years of inactivity in the Station Square district, NJMC retained Phillips Preiss to analyze and recommend potential amendments to the Redevelopment Plan to stimulate redevelopment. The study concluded that a substantial increase in allowable residential densities will be necessary to provide sufficient economic incentive for existing industrial property owners to redevelop.

Client: Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority

Phillips Preiss prepared a form-based zoning code and development and design guidelines for Fort Monmouth, a former military base which closed in 2011. The Fort encompasses over 1,100 acres that lie in three different “host municipalities:” the Boroughs of Tinton Falls, Eatontown and Oceanport. A reuse and redevelopment plan for the fort envisioned the development of mixed-income neighborhoods; creation of mixed-use, neighborhood centers; provisions for enhanced mobility; and the creation of an open space network. Phillips Preiss worked closely with FMERA and the three municipalities to translate the design concepts in the reuse and redevelopment plan into land use regulations that are flexible enough to respond to market conditions, based on sound sustainable planning principles, and conform to all New Jersey statutory requirements.

Client: Township of Montclair, NJ

Overview

Phillips Preiss was retained by the Township of Montclair to assess the potential impacts of a major downtown mixed-use project. Notably, the development was proposed to include housing for approximately 1,000 students from a nearby state university, as well as retail, office, hotel and/or residential components. The Phillips Preiss study analyzed aesthetic, community, economic and traffic impacts and outlined a variety of possible benefits and challenges, which helped lay the groundwork for a productive discussion between the applicant, the Township and the greater Montclair community.

Results

The student housing project did not move forward, due in part to concerns about potential impacts uncovered by Phillips Preiss' study. The Township of Montclair subsequently hired Phillips Preiss to prepare a redevelopment investigation for the study area, as well as a redevelopment plan.

Client: National Resources

Overview

Edgewater Harbor is a mixed-use development on the former Unilever research site, which is located across from New York City in Edgewater, New Jersey. This major redevelopment project involves the adaptive reuse of an industrial building, restoration of a pier and construction of new roads and commercial, residential and mixed-use buildings, and a new municipal building for the Borough of Edgewater. Its focal point is a new traditional “Main Street” with apartments above storefronts and pedestrian-friendly design.

Phillips Preiss has served as planning consultant to the redeveloper, National Resources, since 2004. The firm has provided a range of services including analysis of affordable housing, demographic and fiscal impact issues; expert planning testimony before the Borough’s Planning Board; and drafting of amendments to the redevelopment plan.

Results

Despite the difficult economic climate in recent years, the project has moved forward and is nearing completion.

Client: Town of Morristown, NJ

New mixed-use buildings face the Morristown Green. Upper floors are stepped back, per one of the design standards required in exchange for a height bonus.

Courtyard and mid-block pedestrian connection behind the mixed-use building that faces the Morristown Green.

The new LEED-accredited office building for the Morristown Parking Authority.

Overview

With its City Council and Planning Board at odds over approval of a major downtown redevelopment project, Phillips Preiss brokered a compromise and brought the project to a close on behalf of the Town of Morristown. Many Town leaders and residents were alarmed by the height and bulk of the project, and were also unhappy with its original design. The proposed project involved the complete redevelopment of several key, underutilized blocks abutting the Town Green, with new mixed-use development. Phillips Preiss worked with the Town to impose a series of design standards, including LEED certification, as a condition of approval in exchange for allowing building heights in excess of the current zoning.

Results

The first phase of the project, New Jersey’s first LEED Platinum building, has been completed. The plan won four statewide awards: the New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association’s Outstanding Smart Growth Plan, the New Jersey Planning Officials Award for Innovative Design, Downtown New Jersey’s Excellence in Downtown Award and New Jersey Future’s Smart Growth Award for Creative Downtown Redevelopment Strategy.

Client: Asbury Partners LLC / iStar Financial

Overview

Phillips Preiss is providing ongoing planning services to Asbury Partners LLC, the designated Master Developer of a 50-acre redevelopment area on the waterfront within the City of Asbury Park, NJ. The firm’s work has included drafting a comprehensive amendment to the Waterfront Redevelopment Plan in coordination with the City, preparing economic and fiscal impact analyses, and providing expert testimony in condemnation matters.

Results

Asbury Partners LLC’s VIVE townhome development is under construction. The amended Waterfront Redevelopment Plan was adopted by the City of Asbury Park.