PATERSON — Paterson’s downtown area used to be a ghost town at night, architect Matthew Evans recalls.
Now city officials hope that the six-story, glass-and-brick apartment building at 120-134 Main Street that Evans designed for famed developer Charles Florio could help revitalize Paterson’s business district.
“People living in the city centre do their shopping in the city centre and have the opportunity for nightlife as in previous years,” said Gianfranco Archimede, Director of the Historical Monuments Protection Office.
The 72-unit apartment building, which will be built at one of the city’s most important intersections, is expected to open early next year.
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“Main and Broadway was the place to go,” Evans said.
The Rivoli Theater, a 1,800-seat movie theater built in the 1920s, once stood on the corner where Florio’s development was built. At the time, Paterson’s nightlife was vibrant with opera houses, theaters, and vaudeville stages.
But by the 1950s, the Rivoli had closed just as the mid-century depression began to seep into downtowns across the country. The Rivoli sat vacant until it burned down in 1972 and was replaced by a one-story retail building that coincidentally belonged to Evans’ father.
Evans believes the current project signals a major shift in the city’s future as the local government adopts a new philosophy towards urban planning.
Until 2009, City Hall did not allow mixed-zoning developments in the downtown area. In effect, the tax code encouraged property owners not to use the upper floors, contributing to the dull feeling in the neighborhood. A walk down Main Street shows that several buildings still have upper-story windows that are still bricked up and plastered over.
“All the upper floors were being abandoned or closed up, because there was a rule in Paterson that you didn’t have to pay taxes,” Evans said. “Now, attitudes are different — over time, people have realized that you can revitalize the downtown area by having people live, work and shop there.”
Zoning laws changed to encourage reuse of old buildings
Zoning laws were amended in 2009 to encourage adaptive reuse of historic buildings, some of which date back to the mid-19th century, Archimede said.
Alma Realty was perhaps the first major developer to respond to zoning changes in the downtown historic district. The Queens-based real estate firm renovated two vacant 1920s-era buildings on Church Street a few years ago—the former Fabian Theater and the former Alexander Hamilton Hotel—to create 178 apartments.
Ruben Gomez, Alma’s manager in Paterson, said the apartments in question are fully booked.
Gomez, Paterson’s former economic development director, said Americans with Disabilities Act requirements are one reason why upper floors of other downtown buildings remain empty. He said property owners don’t want to pay the cost of installing elevators.
“It costs about $100,000 and achieves nothing except people being able to go up in the elevator,” Gomez said.
While urban renewal and blight have devastated the downtowns of many cities in the United States, much of Paterson’s downtown was preserved thanks to the city’s designation of it as a National Register historic district in 1999, preserving buildings dating back to the 1850s from demolition.
Buildings demolished for highway that was never built
Paterson’s shopping corridor used to extend farther north, to the Passaic River, but more than 15 years ago, large tracts of land were demolished to make way for what would become a highway, a road that was never built.
Traces of the cancelled highway project persist in the form of abandoned, weed-covered lots along the coastline.
That’s why Evans thinks Florio’s new project is so important. He said it has the potential to “stimulate” other developments.
Since moving his firm to Paterson in 2010, Florio has been snapping up properties in the city’s 4th, 1st and 5th wards, building market-rate apartments in places where opponents say new housing would never work.
“When people say you can’t build market-rate apartments, I say why not,” Florio said. “I’m either going to be the guy who’s crazy smart and can see 50 years into the future, or I’m going to be a complete idiot — there’s no in between.”
In addition to the project at 120-134 Main Street, Florio is completing a 138-unit building on the site of the former Paterson Armory, a 206-unit building on Fair Street, a 10-story ultramodern luxury building on Hamilton Avenue and the renovation of the former Greenbaum Interiors furniture store.
Florio admits he’s prone to hyperbole when talking about Paterson’s potential. But how can you blame him? He’s watched his family’s firm, Anthony Real Estate, which opened in Jersey City in the 1970s, ride the Gold Coast’s gentrification tsunami.
‘Paterson is changing’
As for Paterson, Florio said the best indicator of the city’s potential is its population growth over the past 10 years, so he believes flooding the local market with new housing units is a safe bet.
“Paterson is changing — because five, 10 years ago, nobody wanted to buy a house on Godwin Street,” Floyd said. “Now it’s happening.”
Florio’s efforts to build market-rate and luxury homes in one of the state’s poorest cities have invited accusations that he is a gentrifier, as the Paterson Press previously reported. But he doesn’t care about his detractors.
“I buy vacant lots, vacant houses and vacant buildings — I’ve never displaced a single resident,” Florio said, pointing to the former Greenbaum building he converted into apartments. “Did I displace an affordable housing unit? It was a furniture store and a warehouse.”
As for Paterson’s future, Florio said he believes that as tourism in Great Falls increases, visitors will soon realize the city is more than the “bad press” they read about it.
“If we had the interest rates and employment rates we have in 2021, I would say in 10 years this would be a completely different city,” Florio said.