By Michael Lovito
Morristown’s train station offers commuters and pleasure-seekers a quick, convenient way to get into New York City. But if a new project slated for a lot behind the station gets approved, the surrounding neighborhood could soon become a destination in its own right.
The Morristown planning board on Thursday heard opening testimony regarding a new mixed-use building planned for One Lackawanna Place, a triangular lot that also has frontages on Lafayette Avenue and Lumber Street.
Consisting of 89 residential units and 5,118 square feet of retail space, project architect Dean Marchetto said he and his partner Bruce Stieve designed the building to act as a “gateway” to Morristown.
“There’s two arrival points – coming by car on Lafayette, and coming by train,” Marchetto said.
“So, we wanted to take advantage of that and create a sense of space, a sense of arrival and a gateway that would really, really enhance the town’s front door.”
To accommodate the odd shape of the lot, Marchetto and Stieve designed the building in the shape of an L and drew inspiration from the look of the train station.
“We envision this building as like a world class hotel,” Marchetto said. “With a stone base, brick top, and architectural details borrowed in reference to the train station itself, and also materials that are typical to Morristown’s masonry history.”
In addition to providing parking space for its residents, the building will also include public parking and bike racks, the result of a lengthy settlement process between the property owner, New Jersey Transit, and the Morristown Parking Authority that turned the design and development of the lot into a nine-year saga.
Parking also was top of mind for Morristown planner Phil Abramson, who cautioned after testimony from Marchetto and Stieve and landscape architect Cristina Reis that the building’s proposed pick up and drop off area would have to be more “controlled” than the existing lot.
“It’s been an open lot. Like, you can just sit and wait for people, or you see cabs lined up,” Abramson said. “It’s going to close down for a while, for 18 months to two years. It’ll give us time as a community to transition. But when it opens back up, it’s going to be a different functioning type of place.”
Dec. 5, 2024. Photo by Michael Lovito
Outside of haggling over sidewalk length and tree placement, the only other serious concern raised about the project was from Paul Haley, the owner of gastropub End of Elm, who was wary of sharing a sewage line with the proposed development.
“I didn’t think I’d be talking about this, but unfortunately I have some intimate knowledge with that collection point,” Haley said. “I’m concerned about an additional 350 people going to that point. I don’t know technically what’s wrong with it underground, but there are problems with it.”
Still, Haley hastened to point out he had nothing against the application.
“By the way, beautiful project,” Haley said. “I’m not hostile towards this thing at all. We just have some…intimate knowledge.”
The board first approved the development in 2018, but the project stalled during the pandemic. Then the parking authority sued NJ Transit, accusing the agency of a “money grab” for seeking $1 million for its easement on the property.
FROM SITES TO SIGHTINGS
Mayor Tim Dougherty used the end of the meeting to address the spate of large, low-flying drones that have been spotted throughout Morris County over the past two weeks.
“We’ve been complaining for a couple of weeks,” Dougherty said, noting that the town hasn’t received any additional information about the mysterious aircraft from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, or local members of Congress. “It’s bizarre, it’s unnerved a lot of people, and hopefully we’ll have an answer soon.”
The mayor noted that federal authorities should pay particular attention to the issue given how frequently President-elect Donald Trump visited Morristown Municipal Airport during his first term.
“He flew in a lot, all spring, summer, and fall long, to Morristown Airport on Air Force One and to take a helicopter to Bedminster,” Dougherty said.
“Well, just the other day a helicopter landed in Somerset for an accident and couldn’t medevac that person to Morristown Hospital because of the drones. So, it’s a real issue.”
Dougherty encouraged anyone who takes a photograph or video footage of a drone to report the sighting to tips.fbi.gov.
Are you kidding me? Another MHS project in Morristown? How many is this?
If nothing else, the publics right to know about the drones, and/or the reason that there is a lack of knowledge to be obtained from the drones by our superior law enforcement capabilities, outweighs the right not to know.
How is it that one has not been removed from airspace and analyzed, is there a threat to the public in removing one from the sky? how would our military not remove one? weather balloon vibes x100. Is there a chemical hazard? We all assume it isnt a gardening magazine obtaining landscape architecture. Time to share.
The project is great. Build bigger, build better and build around the Colonial 1776 that makes Morristown.
I echo Connor’s comment. And they always go too low with these building plans. I like seeing a lot of infill between the Green and the station. It’s like downtown now has different sections.
Whenever someone says anything about something being “L-shaped” I always have to ask: Upper or lower case? 🙂 Sorry – I’ll show myself out!
nice – lets get it cooking, but…
This is where I would suggest again, allow a slight height variance. This building would look awesome if say 100ft out from the corner of the L, they allowed another 2-3 stories, and on top of that maybe out a big cupola with a clock on it. A mix of historical look, varied (more interesting) building heights, and a historical looking centerpiece overlooking the train station. Instead its just an L shaped box because they need to maximize the height theyre “allowed”.