Carteret Performing Arts and Events Center, other projects moving forward

Susan Loyer
Courier News and Home News Tribune
A rendering of the Carteret Performing Arts and Event Center.

CARTERET - A performing arts and event center, a marina with ferry service to Manhattan, new apartment buildings with commercial space and a revamped hotel proposal are among a number of building projects on the horizon for the burgeoning borough.      

On Saturday, July 21, officials will break ground at the 55,000-square-foot Carteret Performing Arts and Events Center (CPAC), located at Cooke and Washington avenues. Festivities, which include live theatrical performances, a magician, comedian and family-friendly activities including music, and light refreshments, will begin at 11 a.m.  A miniature model of CPAC also will be handed out to the first 600 people in attendance. 

“Our arts center will be one of the premiere entertainment venues in the region,” Mayor Dan Reiman said. “We expect construction of the theater and our upcoming Carteret Arts District to be completed and open by 2020. The arts center and the surrounding private investment in the arts district will revitalize our downtown and re-invigorate our thriving community. This is not like any other events center we have in New Jersey. It's a multi-use events center."

Reiman said the center can be used for one large event or several smaller events at one time. It will include a 500-seat black box theater, a 1,600 plus seat main auditorium/theater and a 5,000-square-foot art gallery wrapped around the building, as well as a rooftop element which will hold about 200 people, he said. 

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The performing arts center, located at the site of the old Ritz Theater, is being developed by the Carteret Business Partnership (CBP), a non-profit economic development corporation.  

“Everything from the lighting fixtures and seating to the architecture and aesthetics of the building are currently being meticulously designed and crafted to meet our exact specifications,”  CBP Chairman Mark Hruska in a statement said. “CPAC will usher in a new era of performing spaces with a flare that will stand the test of time.”

CPAC will be managed and operated by Comcast Spectra. Funding for the center will be partially provided by a $6 million grant received by the CBP in 2015 from the Middlesex County Cultural Arts Trust Fund.

Carteret Mayor Daniel J. Reiman discusses plans along the borough's waterfront.

In addition to CPAC, the Carteret Arts District will also include multiple mixed use residential and commercial buildings. 

Currently under construction across the street from the planned arts center are 67 residential units with more than 12,500 square feet of commercial space. 

"It's in front of our seven-story parking garage that was completed last year," the mayor said. "Catty-corner to this will be a five-story building with 240 residential units that was approved last year. It will include an 8,000 square foot restaurant with a rooftop bar lounge that will hold up to 250 people." 

Reiman said there is a lot of interest from regional and businesses in the area for the commercial space. 

"The plans are ultimately to have about five sit-down restaurants within the Arts District on Washington Avenue," the mayor said. "The CBP acquired a building adjacent to the park. It is under construction and designed for a 160-seat restaurant. One block over the city is buying an old church, which the diocese decided to shut down, with the hopes of having a sit-down Italian restaurant at the site." 

Reiman said the borough put a provision in the 2007 economic bill that allows the borough to buy back and hold liquor licenses for the redevelopment projects within certain zones. 

"We have about five available liquor licenses for what we are trying to do with the restaurant district and the marina," he said. 

Reiman said a state-of-the-art 12-screen movie theater, adjacent to the arts center, also is planned after the arts center is completed. 

One block over another 60 condos over parking are under construction.

"They'll have a rooftop deck overlooking the skyland of Manhattan and our waterfront," he said. 

Those coming to views shows at the new arts center and shop in the district also will have a play to  stay. The planned Marriott Courtyard Hotel, which was approved about two years ago, is moving forward. 

"The construction numbers came in higher than the developer originally anticipated," Reiman said. "He wound up buying the property next door. He went before the Planning Board just last month. Instead of going eight stories high he will go about five stories high, but it will be a much wider product with the same number of rooms, same square footage, same parking count, same commercial count. We expect him to have the demo completed and be in the ground with footage and foundation probably by October." 

EARLIER: Carteret marks marina milestone

The 190-slip waterfront marina also is moving ahead.   

"They are a little behind schedule because the manufacturer of the docks was not able to get  the docks to us in time," the mayor said. "It probably will be open by the end of this boating season. Right now they are still bringing in every week additional floating docks, doing the wiring and plumbing. The state police barracks are in as are the state police portion of the docks are in. Once that's complete and the contractor is done, we will break ground on the waterfront event center, which will be a bar/lounge restaurant on the first floor for 150 people and a second-floor banquet center and training center." 

He said he is hoping the center will include suites on the third floor that will overlook the marina.

"One way or the other we expect to be in the ground by September or October," Reiman said. 

EARLIER: Carteret ferry service to Manhattan moves closer to reality

Plans for the ferry terminal project to Manhattan also are moving forward. 

In May, officials announced that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded $6 million to NJ Transit to purchase a 299-seat passenger ferry that will be leased to the borough for $1 per year and run from Waterfront Park to Midtown, Manhattan. Officials said the total federal funding for the project is more than $10 million. 

Reiman said the ferry service will meet the needs of residents throughout Carteret and Central Jersey. 

"We hope to be in the ground with the ferry terminal project by 2020 or 2021, if not sooner," Reiman said. "We can be up and running almost immediately." 

"For the longest time this was a dormant community," Reiman said. "There was no major focus on revitalization and reinvesting in the town for too many years. They turned down industrial and residential projects. When I became mayor 16 years ago, we became a pro-business, pro-growth administration. We've added more than $1 1/2 billion in construction in the last 16 years." 

And more is planned, the mayor said. 

"They say you're not making any more land or anymore waterfront is not necessarily true here in Carteret," Reiman said. "We're reclaiming the waterfront. We're holding the polluter and the chemical companies accountable, providing public access and at the same token redeveloping and revitalizing brownfield sites." 

To find out more about Carteret, visit Carteret.net or call 732-541-3835. 

Staff Writer Susan Loyer: 732-565-7243; sloyer@gannettnj.com