PARK RIDGE, N.J.—Mayor Keith Misciagna drew a round of applause from his fellow Pascack Valley mayors when he announced Jan. 29 that a global snack manufacturer based in Allendale is relocating its headquarters to the borough.
Speaking at the annual Breakfast with the Greater Pascack Valley Mayors, hosted by the nonprofit Greater Pascack Valley Chamber of Commerce, Misciagna said the company—Promotion in Motion, or PIM Brands—signed a lease for 111,000 square feet this past November at 225 Brae Boulevard, formerly the global headquarters for Hertz.
PIM manufactures a who’s who of brands including Welch’s Fruit Snacks, Sun-Maid Milk Chocolate Raisins, Toggi Fine European Chocolate Wafers, Tuxedos Chocolate Almonds, Sour Jacks Sour Candies, and Nuclear Sqworms Sour Neon Gummi Worms.
“I’m in love with them,” Misciagna said, explaining that PIM President and CEO Michael Rosenberg, of Woodcliff Lake, took out a lease with an option to buy that coincides with the thriving company’s 80,000 square foot expansion of its manufacturing facilities in Somerset.
“He has stated he will buy the Hertz building within five years. He’s going to put 150 nice jobs in there: high-paying jobs. He’s taking 111,000 square feet initially,” Misciagna said.
He added of Rosenberg “He’s applied for permits to do a $15 million renovation. That was like a gift from God for me; that’s one less thing we have to worry about.”
Misciagna, who said the borough “is in a battle for our lives” against aggressive high-density development, acknowledged he’s been getting “slapped around a little bit by our residents because we’re trying to put our affordable [housing] in where I think it’s appropriate: in our downtown, near our train station, near our buses.”
He said, “I’m not against affordable housing; I’m against forced-high-density developers coming in and trying to change the character of our town. I think we all are in agreement with that.”
“Misciagna added, “We’re trying to keep the charm and the trees and the grass here.”
The mayor’s remarks were part of an update to the 55-year-old Greater Pascack Valley Chamber of Commerce, which for years has been hosting the breakfast at The Iron Horse in Westwood. The public was invited, and time was set aside for questions and answers.
Also speaking were Emerson Mayor Danielle DiPaola, Montvale Council President Douglas Arendacs, Old Tappan Mayor John M. Kramer, Oradell Mayor Dianne Didio, Hillsdale Mayor John Ruocco, Washington Township Mayor Peter Calamari, Westwood Mayor Ray Arroyo, and Woodcliff Lake Mayor Carlos Rendo.
(See “Mayors Dish Over Breakfast: Amazon’s Impact, Housing Mandates, More,” Feb. 3 with sidebars on each town.)
Introduced by former Westwood Mayor Skip Kelley, who serves on the GPVCOC board, the organization’s president, Robin Malley of Friedberg Properties, set the tone for the roughly hourlong event, airing concerns about vacant storefronts and increasing traffic.
Of all Pascack Valley communities, only Park Ridge stands defiant, resisting settling with Fair Share Housing Center over affordable development.
The borough allowed for a major redevelopment on Kinderkamack Road that provides for 24 affordable rental units. The five-story, 240-unit rental apartment building with 17,000 square feet of retail space is part of a transit village.
The development will impact Park Ridge schools as well as local traffic patterns along busy Kinderkamack Road.
Should a court judgment fall against Park Ridge—a Feb. 24 court date recently was postponed—it might be forced to allow units on the 30 acres of the Sony site within its borders, adjacent to Montvale.
Hornrock Properties, an intervenor in Park Ridge’s affordable housing litigation, asserts that it can build up to 972 units on the site to help fulfill Park Ridge’s “unmet need” for affordable units.
Park Ridge asserts that its plan, which includes construction of a 51-unit complex for veterans, seniors, adults with disabilities, and people of low or moderate income, satisfies its obligation.
At the breakfast, Misciagna said, “We lost Sony’s R&D facility and right next door Hertz movedto Florida to get a better tax break, so we were petrified that something was going to happen there.”
He joked that he was trying to get PIM Brands to buy the former Sony campus.
Misciagna followed speakers from Hillsdale and Montvale, who talked up flat or low municipal tax rates in their towns. Then he said Park Ridge, with its industrial history, differed from its neighboring former “sleepy farm communities.”
“I don’t have a problem with our downtown being vibrant and busy like Westwood and some of our surrounding towns; I like that idea. The problem is we’ve got corporate parks, and our corporate parks are near residential [lots],” he said.
Misciagna offered the borough as a cautionary example.
“One of the things we made a mistake on—if anybody wants to learn—we didn’t have a housing plan because we were told by our professionals, ‘Don’t put it in writing because maybe you could massage it when you get to that point.’”
He said, “Well, that left us exposed to a lawsuit. So the good news is we dragged our feet long enough to get a housing plan in place and we feel we have a better than average chance of winning in court.”
Development’s silver lining
Misciagna reported additional good news, saying “Our downtown with this big development has brought us some revitalization.”
He said Lidl, a German supermarket, is taking over for the Acme, which fizzled after taking over for the A&P.
“We’re thrilled about that,” he said. “The worst thing for a downtown is empty storefronts. We were starting to look like Flint, Mich. for a while and that’s changed.”
He also praised the addition of “a beautiful jewelry store that moved in right near this new development; we put a pharmacy on Park Avenue; there was another development there that we put in a year or so ago and the retail was empty for a while but that’s all filled up right now, so that’s very positive.”
He spoke to the pending community center and the overhauled basketball court downtown, saying, “I think it’s going to make for a more vibrant, walkable community.”
Misciagna also told his audience that Park Ridge is renewing Davies Field this spring, the borough is proud of its state sectional champion Owls, and that the borough is excited to contribute to the proposed triboro walkway.
“We’re going to get that done if we can get access to the reservoir,” he said.
