Garage HeldKey to Hackensack's Renewal

HACKENSACK, N. J. March 1—In what was described by this city's MOO as “a tangible beginning to the rebirth” of Hackensack's once‐thriving downtown shopping area, it was announced today that a design contract had been awarded for the construction of a 1,500‐car parking facility.

The lack of adequate offstreet parking and the clogging of Hackensacks Main Street shopping area as a result have been advanced as the main reasons for the desertion of shoppers to the more spacious malls and plazas in other parts of Bergen County and for the steady decline in retail business in Hackensack.

One of the city's retail prides, Arnold Constable, will close its doors soon, leaving only Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Franklin: Simon as the major retaileit

Hackensacki with a peplatiOn of 43,000; is the seat of Bergen. County, the second most populous county in the state and the retail center of northern NeW Jersey. It is also one of the counties being used by the Regional Plan Association for the study of housing, labOr and economic conditions in the greater New York metropolitan region.

The garage, of bolted steel and concrete, is its designers say, portable. Because of its bolted steel construction it could be dismantled and releicated if Hackensack ever wanted to move it

Garage Could Be Moved

The garage has beea budgeted at $2‐naillion to $3‐million and will sit on a oneand‐a‐half‐acre site bounded by Mercer, Demarest Moore and River Streets in the middle of Hackensack's newly designated urban renewal area. The garage, which will provide free parking for shoppers, will connect with the shopping area one block away by means of an arching bridge over existing or rebuilt stores.

The renewal area consists of 100 acres bounded by Essex Street, State Street, the Susquehanna Railroad tracks and the Hackensack River.

As disclosed by Mayor Kazmier Wysocki Sidney Fenton, president of the local Chamber of Commerce, and Dalton Baugh, director of planning for Parking Structures (New England) Inc., of Waltham, Mass., which will build the facility, the parking garage is the key to ending Hackensack's downtown decay.

The garage will triple the 500‐car offstreet parking spaces—in addition to metered parking areas — now scattered amid the city in four separate lots, and provide 65,000 feet of temporary retail space. The space will be made available to retailers who will have io be relocated as the old buildings that house their stores are torn down.

Mayor Wysocki said the eventual renewal of the 100 acres of downtown Hacken sack called for rebuilding stores, consolidating small retailers in block‐long buildings, luring city, state and Federal offices to the area and widening streets.

Designation of the downtown area as an urban renewal site was approved by the City Council on Monday, and the city's Housing and Redevelopment Agency has already applied for planning funds from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Mayor said that the parking project and the re newal plans for the downtown area had the enthusiastic support of the city's Housing Authority, which also plans to build in the area.

1. Former Glory Recalled

Mr. Wysocki said, “We'd like it to be the way it was after the war.” In 1945 and 1946, he said, “Hackensack was the place to shop. Why the cars would be, backed out to Maywood and River Edge waiting to get into the, city. It was Bergen's shopping hub.”

This lasted until the mid nineteen‐fifties, when the big malls began to be built. “Our retail took a nose dive,” he said. “In fact, I remember we used to, keep a tally of the vacant stops on Main Street.”

He said that Hackensack's decline was most severe in the mid‐nineteen‐sixties, but that “small retailers have been coming back and so have the shoppers who want the personalized service you get in small. shops.”

Nevertheless, the large retailers have left the city Jack Linden, who operates a men's clothing store, said that based on his experience Hackensack suffered a retail decline of 20 per cent in the last decade.