Goldin wants to get all aboard train station project
Public forums to be held on what redevelopment area will have
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer

EDISON - The firm InterCap Holdings owns about 44 acres of land roughly boxed in by Plainfield Avenue to the east, Kilmer Road to the north and the Northeast Corridor train tracks to the south.

Steve Goldin, CEO and chair of Inter- Cap, believes that there are definitely better things that the land could be used for than what's on it now. Sitting on this property- within spitting distance of the Edison train station- aremostly parking lots and warehouses,many of themhalf empty, by Goldin's own admission. Something else, he asserts, should be there. But what that something is, is still up in there air.

Goldin, a real estate developer from West Windsor, wants to build something near the Edison train station. This much he knows. The specifics beyond that, however, he has said he would like to leave up to the residents of Edison.

"When people [ask] what's going to be on the site, my response is we know there's a better use than three half-empty warehouses. Normal people agree with that," said Goldin. "You know what else could be there? There could be office, there could be retail, there could be hotels, there could be public uses."

PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Steve Goldin, CEO and chair of InterCap Holdings, talks with Peter Antonio of Edison about his redevelopment plans for the Edison Train Station area, urging Antonio to come to a series of public forums on the matter.

He also noted that there would, in all likelihood, also be housing, due to affordable housing obligations that must be met.

"There obviously would have to be some housing as required by the Council on Affordable Housing. There could be some market-rate housing if that's what people want. There is some percentage of people who do want housing here, but again, that's going to come from the process," said Goldin, who added that he would be open to funding the construction of a new school to offset any new students in the system as a result.

The process Goldin refers to is a long series of public forums and workshops around which he hopes to vision his project according to what Edison residents say they want. The meetings will be held March 9 from noon to 5 p.m., March 11 from 6 to 9 p.m., and March 15 from noon to 5 p.m., all taking place at the Pines Manor, 2085 Route 27. He hopes to get hundreds of people to come and give their input on what they would want to see built in that area, from the content of the development to the character of the architecture.

Billboards ask passers-by whether they "want one" - "one" being a mixed-use development in the Edison Train Station area. The billboard advertise for a series of forums on the matter.

"By coming to the public meetings and participating, they're going to see firsthand that [this project is] like nothing they've ever experienced before. … [The meetings are] partly educational, it's partly giving your opinion and thoughts, but it's also engaging with other members of the community and members of our team," said Goldin, who added that the experience could be compared to a trade show.

Goldin says that he wants people to come in and give their input, to tell him and his company what they want built in an area that he says is in sore need of redevelopment. Do people want mostly retail? Would they like a new library? Do they want big parks? These questions, and more, he hopes will be answered, he said.

JEFF GRANIT staff Steve Goldin, CEO and chair of InterCap Holdings, stands in front of the Midwest Air Technologies Inc. warehouse where he plans to redevelop the area into a mixed-use village.

"The public totally influences the end product because the public essentially is giving us as the developer permission to proceed with a plan that we come up with together," said Goldin.

Still, he said he is aware of the suspicion people may have when presented with his plan and that there is good reason to approach things skeptically. Many developers, he admits, have paid lip service to public input and participation only to charge ahead with their own plans when the time is right. Many more, he said, don't even bother to pretend they seek public input, and instead make dealings in secret, their plans revealed only when it's too late to change anything.

"The old-school way was there was a pyramid and you interact with the mayor and the planner and the council and the zoning board, you know, 40, 50 people, and the public is down at the bottom. Usually, the first exposure the public has is a Planning Board meeting, and things are kind of already done at that point. They just don't have much chance to shape it. We turn the pyramid over. We start with the public," said Goldin.

He fully expects people to "hold [his] feet to the fire" through the process. To him, building a consensus is definitely worth something. Specifically, it could be about $2 million, the amount of money he has spent in order to set up focus groups, buy advertising, hire consultants, organize public meetings and more. Even then, he is aware that a full consensus probably won't be reached, but he hopes that significant support can be raised despite this.

"We're being realistic. We know in a place like Edison, you'll never get more than 60 percent behind any one thing," said Goldin. He had said, almost word for word, a very similar thing during a town meeting in West Windsor on Feb. 23 regarding public support for a mixed-use development there.

Goldin said that his company has also been engaged in smaller meetings with various community groups, naming the Edison Chamber of Commerce (ECC) and the Edison Wetlands Association (EWA) as examples. The ECC was receptive to the idea, saying that the business community felt that the development was ideally located.

"The business community, yes, definitely [supports this]. It is a development using mixed use; it also was important that the redevelopment was taking place in a downtown area where the infrastructure is. We need to look at upgrading some of the infrastructure. It was good to look at where it [the area] supported it as opposed to looking at green acres," said Barbara Roos, president of the ECC.

Bob Spiegel, president of the EWA, was a little more cautious. While in principle he was not against it, he said that more information from Goldin about what the ultimate end game is would be needed.

"It's clear to us, as anyone who looks at this, that the main goal is really a transit village, and they're not really willing to say that, and they'll put what the public wants. But the reality is, they're looking to put a transit village there, and I'm not 100 percent sold on that.…What benefits will it bring?Will it be overkill?What will the costs be to educate children brought into this, and what will the end game be? Because, they will do what is good for business, what will be profitable for them at the end of the day," said Spiegel.

InterCap was started around 2006 when Goldin bought part of the tract from a man name Joe Morris (who, Goldin says, is not in any way related to controversial real estate developer JackMorris). After negotiating a deal, Morris introduced Goldin to the person who owned the neighboring tracts, and the meetings resulting in further deals. Goldin has an interest in property near mass transit, and he said, "We want to buy properties near every train station we can." He said that he was well on his way with starting his project when he heard about Edison's Smart Growth initiative, which is currently involved in redevelopment along the Routes 1 and 27 corridors and the former Revlon site, and noticed a synergy in ideas.

"Well, I wasn't involved with this Smart Growth project. That was all going on prior to me getting these properties and, in fact, I wasn't even aware of that until I'd signed contracts on the first two [properties], but it just makes so much sense," said Goldin.

Goldin said that he expects a great deal of revenue for the project will come from New York-based companies whose 10-year leases in the city will soon expire. He said that some companies are looking to move at least some of their offices to New Jersey and that the nearby rail lines will make the area especially attractive for that.

At the moment, the property is zoned for light industrial uses, meaning that whatever ends up coming out of the meetings will need to be vetted before the council and the zoning board, which will have to rezone the area before the first shovel is in the ground.