Residents discuss future of riverfront after closing of state prison

by Marc Hummel

Originally appeared in The Gleaner, the school newspaper of Rutgers University — Camden.

The Riverfront State Prison, situated along the Delaware River just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge in Camden, NJ, was never welcomed by the neighborhood on which it was plopped. Despite considerable public opposition, the prison was nevertheless opened in 1985, as part of a deal between the mayor at the time and the state of New Jersey. "They knew it would kill off investment in their area and they were right," says Dr. Michael Lang, professor and former chair of the Department of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University.

Now that the inmates have been transferred to other sites around the state and with the prison in the midst of being demolished, the residents of Camden have an opportunity to shape the size, define the scope, and suggest the content of redevelopment on the waterfront in a totally unique, transparent, grassroots process.

Despite strong public opposition, the citizens of Camden were too scattered and disorganized to successfully stop the opening of the Riverfront State Prison when it was first proposed in 1985. But when the state tried to place a second prison in their neighborhood just a few years later, the citizens were ready for a fight.

"We already had a big prison here, we really didn't want the second one next to it. We didn't have a choice. Originally [the prison] provided jobs, but eventually it wasn't people from Camden who worked there," said Toni Gutwein, a Camden resident of over 27 years.

In an effort to stop the second prison, residents organized to form Save Our Waterfront (SOW), which quickly drafted a new neighborhood plan. The second prison was never opened.

Although new plans for the Riverfront State Prison site are far from being finalized, the process for defining a new vision for the waterfront have been under way for more than two years. It's a process carefully guided by a coalition of organizations, including SOW, the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA), the New Jersey Tree Foundation, and the Cooper's Ferry Development Association (CFDA). Together, through public information sessions, design workshops, and feedback meetings, they hope to identify a consensus of community opinion and form it into a cohesive proposal that reflects the genuine hopes and values of the citizens of Camden.

"This is a unique process, because past opportunities in Camden have come from a different mindset, and have been very top-down... this time it's been the exact opposite," explained Joe Myers, Project Manager for the CFDA, a non-profit corporation.

The bottom-up approach began with the most recent draft of the North Camden Neighborhood Plan, commissioned by the CFDA in 2006. The plan, and its subsequent revisons, outlines a remedy to "decades of decline... poverty, crime, and abandonment," a centerpiece of which is the closing of the Riverfront State Prison, making way for universal access to a more visually appealing, redeveloped waterfront.

Jean Kehner, a resident of Camden for over 70 years, says she originally envisioned a giant park on the site, but realizes she isn't the only one with an opinion. "There are people who want to put housing there," she elaborated. "As long as it doesn't block out people who already live here, I'd be O.K. with that." Open space, public access to the waterfront, and job-providing entities were among the many priorities identified as concerns of the residents in these first few meetings.

Jessica Franzini, Program Director for New Jersey's Tree Foundation, agreed, adding that she is "very impressed by the waterfront plan for open space, including the 9 acre park, and a green corridor throughout the neighborhood."
As owners of the property where the prison once stood, the state of New Jersey has the authority to decide what ultimately replaces the prison. But Joe Myers thinks the community is taking the right tact by coming up with its plan first. "There are a lot of variables at the state level and the city level, but so far everyone's been cooperating, and it helps that the mayor is fully supportive of this, and the DRPA that helped fund this process and the prison demolition itself, has been instrumental in getting state support for it."

The next steps for the city include a cycle of planning drafts, community input, and revisions. Rodney Sadler, President of SOW, believes the effort to redevelop the prison site should be focused on neighborhood building. "We're trying to replace positives with negatives. I'm optimistic, I've been in this neighborhood for 35 years... The potential for what could happen here is so great. The trick is to create development that doesn't exclude us. We can't make it so nice that we can't afford to live here."