What, exactly, is “sustainability”?
A vacant car dealership on Bank Street could become a bricks-and-mortar example, if a local property owner and a group of entrepreneurs succeed in transforming it into the Morristown EcoCenter.
Their vision for the 20,000-square-foot facility includes an “incubator” to help green-themed businesses get started. The ambitious plans also call for an organic restaurant and commercial kitchen; rooftop greenhouses; a regional hub for locally grown food; a specialty retail store; and room for arts, educational and cultural events.
They see the EcoCenter –along with the nearby Simon Gallery and the Gallery at 14 Maple–becoming the focal point of a downtown arts community. At the same time, they hope the incubator will demonstrate how environmentally and socially themed businesses can be engines for economic growth.
“The EcoCenter will showcase and support new technologies, entrepreneurs, innovative approaches to ecological regeneration and urban and suburban revitalization, and will provide the opportunity for the community to patronize, learn from, and interact with businesses that contribute to sustainability,” according to a statement from the Sustainable Business Incubator, a New Jersey nonprofit corporation that is a driving force behind the plans.
Even its business model is innovative, said the incubator’s chairman, Jonathan Cloud. Like a gas/electric car, the EcoCenter would combine two distinctly different approaches.
“This is very much a hybrid project,” he said. “We have a social mission,” while landlord Jack McDonald intends to remain a for-profit businessman who will lease the space.
Mayor Tim Dougherty characterized his initial meeting with Jonathan’s group as promising.
“It’s a very interesting concept, especially the idea of an organic restaurant. I think that would be well received by the community. So would the gardens, and the class space. And it would still be a tax-paying entity. I look forward to another meeting with them.”
The incubator group plans to ask neighbors in the Fourth Ward for feedback. Sustainable Morristown, a local coalition, is organizing a series of events with the Sustainable Business Incubator at the site in April and May to give a flavor of the possibilities. (Full disclosure: Sustainable Morristown is a supporter of this website.) Bike Morristown is putting together an evening of food and music for its end-of-the-month ride in May, for instance.
“The most important thing for us right now is to consult with the community and see if there is enough public support for us to move forward,” explained Jonathan, a senior fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University whose environmental career began in the 1970s with passive solar projects in Canada.
RECYCLING A BUILDING
Harry Simon, whose gallery is a short walk from 55 Bank St., likes what he has heard so far.
“I think it would potentially be a game-changer for the town of Morristown, to raise general awareness of sustainability,” he said. “It would be visible on the street for everyone to come and see. To see an older building in Morristown being recycled is a great example of what sustainability is about.”
The EcoCenter would be a joint venture of Jack McDonald, Jonathan Cloud’s entrepreneurial team and private investors, Jonathan said. A consortium might be created to enable small investors to participate, similar to buying shares in a mutual fund, he said.
Jack is a principal in McDonald Auto Body, a third-generation collision repair business that relocated from Market Street to Dumont Place in 1980. For years he operated McDonald Pontiac/GMC Truck at the Bank Street location.
Three years ago, Jonathan helped start the Sustainable Business Incubator at FDU to assist entrepreneurs with new ventures in renewable energy, carbon dioxide reduction, carbon trading, sustainability consulting and sustainable social enterprises.
It has five clients, Jonathan said, and is being reorganized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with Christopher Kogler, former creative director at PBS flagship station WNET-13, as its CEO, and Robert Dombrowski, a former consultant and adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, as its chief technical officer.
Rent for incubator tenants would be close to market rates, Jonathan said. But they would share access to conference rooms, broadband, office equipment and other support services.
Paul Miller, coordinator of Morristown’s Office of Sustainability, said he suggested the Bank Street site when he heard Jonathan’s team was seeking a physical home for its virtual operations.
Morristown would seem ideal for the EcoCenter, Paul said, given Mayor Dougherty’s commitment to the town’s future. The Mayor hired the environmentally conscious Jonathan Rose Companies as town planners, created the Office of Sustainability with funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and authorized an update of the town master plan that will incorporate sustainability concerns. The town’s green initiatives have earned it a coveted certification from Sustainable Jersey. Morristown Memorial Hospital and the Hyatt Morristown perform large-scale recycling of food wastes. And so forth.
“There’s a lot of foundation to build on here,” Paul said.
Jonathan said he and his partners have raised just over half of the $100,000 in seed money they need to get started. They are talking to banks and investors about borrowing another $1.5 million to $2.5 million for development costs, he said.
Renovations are anticipated to cost between $1 million and $2 million at 55 Bank St., which has been vacant since a Mini-Cooper dealership moved across town about 18 months ago.
Municipal approvals also will be needed, as with any redevelopment, he said.
NJ has many incubators to nuture entrpreneurs but this would be the first one IN a town and FOR the town. The fact that it can spawn the kinds of new businesses that tend to stay were they were born is good for the town economically. The fact that it will focus on green businesses, events and education is good environmentally. The fact that it will provide space for civic and youth groups is good socially. It seems like a a real win-win — what “sustainability” is all about
Thank you for your supportive comments, as well as any questions, concerns, and suggestions for the development—all of which we promise to take into consideration. Please sign up for our email list at https://eepurl.com/dnn-5 and join the Friends of the EcoCenter at our web site https://MorristownEcoCenter.com.
The EcoCenter is a partnership between the existing owner of the property, Jack McDonald, and the nonprofit Sustainable Business Incubator; it is intended to house both for-profit and sustainable nonprofit activities, and is managed by Tipping Point, LLC, a for-profit company. It therefore continues to pay taxes to the municipality.
This is a principled as well as a practical stance. We believe in supporting the community that supports us, and see it as critical to “sustainable initiatives” that they produce a surplus—a surplus that is shared by the investors and with the community. We aim to be a demonstration of the principles of sustainable economic development in the neighborhood, in the town, the county, the state and the region.
The combination of food-related and innovative enterprises housed in the EcoCenter is in our view just the beginning of the revitalization of the neighborhood—a revitalization that is in keeping with the unique character of the neighborhood, yet brings it alive as part of the pedestrian- and bicycle-accessible downtown, provides a farm-to-table restaurant and a food hub for local farmers and food producers, along with its own rooftop greenhouses, community programs, and business incubation.
This is a great idea and will certainly further the rejuvenation of Morristown.
The idea of having organic food restaurants and markets will add to the cause and I suggest that you build bicycle parking spaces next to restaurants/markets so that town people can visit these establishments without driving. This would ease automobile traffic in the town which has been increasingly congested lately.
If more traffic-congested Tokyo can have similar local town situations (Tokyo is a massive collection of many local towns), we should be able to create one in Morristown. I am sure this will be successful (we need to make it successful), then other towns will follow. I have read about simlar movements taking place in Europe.
As the founder of Morristown Moms & Tots & More (a grass roots parent support group) I look forward to seeing this project come to fruition. Having lived in Morristown for 15 years, seeing all of the empty storefronts makes me sad. This would help that section of Bank st. be a place to stop at not just “pass by”. Our children need more places to learn about sustainability and to embrace the lifestyle. Good Luck!
This sounds like it is potentially an interesting project, especially if it is a taxable enterprise, as we all know that Morristown doesn’t need another not-for-profit.
Contrary to what some may believe, Republicans are not anti-environment or anti-sustainability. Also contrary to popular belief, Morristown is not solely made up of Democrats. With these two facts in mind, I would suggest that it may be wise to attempt to develop a broad base of support for such an undertaking. For example, I am the vice-chair of Morristown’s Republican Committee, an elected body that represents the Republican party in Morristown, yet was not contacted regarding this invitation only event in order to learn more about the eco-center. If this project has the best interest of Morristown in mind, I would suggest that being inclusive of the various constituencies that make up our town may be to your advantage going forward.
Glad you hear you like it — and just want to add that, yes, there will be a place where you can pick up an organic gallon of milk (and possibly a newspaper or two, and recycle it, or maybe bring your laptop and read it online)!
The facility will definitely be aimed as much at local residents as at those from the rest of north Jersey; and before long we hope to encourage them to buy all-electric SUVs if they must use them at all.
I do like the idea, though perhaps a better option would be a place where I can go to get a gallon of milk and a newspaper. If you want to have a “sustainable” town, then it has to have amenities that allow the residents (including myself) to allow for this. An organic restaurant so that folks can drive their SUVs from the outlying burbs to feel like they’re contributing to a “green and sustainable” world does add something to the town, but probably not a lot more than all of the other restaurants that subsume the town. It’d be great to have more reasons to keep folks living “downtown” in motown– this doesn’t seem like one of them.