The City of Hoboken is a place of vibrant and expanding communities. Located at the mouth of the Hudson, the country’s most historic river, Hoboken has enjoyed a rich history of industry and port operations. As the industries of the 21st century shift, so too does the social and cultural fabric of the city. The wants and needs of the residents evolve while the pressure of increased population weigh on an aging and overburdened infrastructure. Through the creative application of design and engineering, the Project Team aims to address these complexities and create a 21st century park that is innovative both in the application of technology and public space.

The history of the project site has many layers. Prior to urbanization, the area was a low lying marsh. After it was filled for development, the project site went through multiple iterations of industrial uses. Industrial operations ceased in 2003 and included detergents, polymers, personal care products, chemicals for the textile industry, adhesives, and agricultural products such as fertilizers and herbicides.

In addition to the contaminants located on site, water is applying pressure from multiple directions. Coastal flooding from sea level rise and increased storm surges resulting from climate change pressure the site from the east. Hurricane Sandy left much of the city of Hoboken inaccessible for days. While less frequent, events like these can have devastating consequences.

Runoff from stormwater represents a more frequent but potentially less severe issue. Localized flooding from stormwater inundates the combined sewer system, and many of the CSO outlets are below mean high tide. As a result, if a large storm event occurs during high tide, stormwater backs up through the system into streets and basements.

The population of Hoboken has increased by double digits in recent decades. This growth has placed increased pressure on the city’s infrastructure, including a significant shortage of parking spaces in the area. Both the City of Hoboken and the project site face numerous challenges. These challenges also present an opportunity to create a project that reflects the character of the neighborhood.

Through E&LP’s history with the project, combined with the expertise of the assembled design team, we hope to create a 21st century civic infrastructure that also becomes a beloved public space.

Resilience has both physical and social dimensions. There are the risks to life and property from flooding events, and there are the actions individuals and communities can take to insure one another’s health, safety, and readiness that rely on neighbors knowing each other. This is only possible when a community has a common ground to rely upon. Hoboken is taking an unprecedented role in the creation of a next generation of infrastructure that addresses both concerns, one that will help prepare the city to weather future storm events and build stronger neighborhoods. The Northwest Resiliency Park is an essential component of Hoboken’s Green Infrastructure Strategic Plan, especially for the emerging neighborhood that will rely on innovative strategies for managing stormwater with increasing rainfalls and a sewer infrastructure that is overburdened.

Our team proposes a dual strategy design for the park that evaluates how stormwater low impact design strategies can positively shape a park environment and conversely how the social and built elements of the park can shape the approach taken to the management of stormwater. The park must be made up of spaces for physical resilience and social resilience, often occupying the same places. Stormwater and flood protection technologies inform physical resilience strategies of topographic form, material use, engineered systems, and planting while design of these spaces transform them into the meeting, gathering, sharing, seeing, and sensing places of social resilience.