Take a look at Essex Green. And then head west on the map about three miles and take a look at the Livingston town Center.
What you’ll see is the tale of two centers.
Essex Green is cut off from the rest of West Orange by I-280 and by roads lacking sidewalks. Even getting around the shopping center can be awkward and dangerous for pedestrians. The area is more parking lot than shops, and it’s clearly designed with cars front of mind.
Livingston Town Center, on the other hand, has sidewalks along all of the approach roads. This includes a state highway – Route 10 / Mt. Pleasant Ave – and a county road – CR 527 / Livingston Ave. Kids ride their bikes from the high school, over a mile away, to come hang out. The retail spaces and restaurants front the street directly, and parking takes up less of the footprint.
It’s a more walkable and successful plaza.
What’s Wrong with Essex Green?
A decade ago, Essex Green had seen better days. And, frankly, so had many other strip malls and physical retail stores.
But we’re seeing a resurgence of some of these locations – Livingston Town Center and West Orange Plaza being two examples. And improvements have been made at Essex Green to help modernize it and give it a little life.
But it still has a few major problems. Chief among them is that you can only safely access the center by car.
If you’re down on Northfield Ave, you can’t walk, run, or bike up Prospect. There are no sidewalks and the road is rather narrow. Heading south on Prospect from Eagle Rock is equally treacherous, since there are no sidewalks throughout the interchange with I-280.
If you’re on Pleasant Valley Way or Englishtown, you can almost get there on foot. But there is no sidewalk on Mt. Pleasant Ave as you approach Marion Drive. And heading northwest up Mt. Pleasant from Gregory may be the least safe approach of all.
Within the shopping plaza, walkability has been improved lately. But there is still no continuous sidewalk from Marion Drive heading north towards the library.
Coming from the bus stop on Prospect requires traversing part of the parking lot before you get to a single sidewalk that approaches Panera. And that bus stop is super inconvenient if your ultimate destination is the West Orange Public Library.
The road that circles the plaza, Rooney Circle, is a problem as well. The ultra wide lanes encourage cars to speed through the area.
What Does Essex Green Have Going For It?
There are a lot of assets here.
It has a movie theater. If you’re an AMC A-list subscriber, your next closest option is East Hanover. And if you’re agnostic on the type of theater, you’d still have to travel down to SOPAC.
It has a PetCo. So you’ve got pet adoptions, vet clinics, and just a general opportunity to take your dog out to socialize.
Between Panera, Five Guys, and Cold Stone there are some great casual places to eat and meet friends. The addition of the Starbucks adds another socializing space.
Jerry’s Artist Outlet is a one of a kind store. You don’t see many actual art stores around anymore.
With the addition of the Cambria, there are now two hotels. The Courtyard has EV chargers with easy access to I-280. There are also Tesla chargers down by the dog park.
And then there’s the library. The project isn’t quite across the finish line yet – but for better or worse this is now one of our community hubs.
Then of course, you’ve got some other pulls like LA Fitness, ShopRite, and Burlington.
There are lots of things to pull you to the area. Whether you’re a parent running errands, a couple on a night out, or a kid hanging out with your friends, there’s something here. It’s not a dying mall like the Livingston Mall.
But it’s also not amazing. It needs a little something – a little nudge to help it live up to its potential.
How Could The Area Be Improved?
There are some big projects that could be completed by the owner or another developer. There’s a parcel of land, opposite ShopRite, that’s included in our affordable housing plan. And there is definitely real estate throughout the parking lot that is underused and could be improved into additional commercial space.
But from the town perspective, there are two things we can contribute: better access and a completed library project.
We’ll leave the library project for another day. But in short, we need to finish the parking lot, make sure the building is fully accessible to patrons, and connect a sidewalk to the main shopping plaza.
Access on Mount Pleasant would be the simplest to solve. There’s already a sidewalk coming up Marion Drive. We just need a quarter mile of sidewalk to connect to Mount Pleasant Place. When I was knocking on doors in Englishtown, just about everyone I talked to said they wanted sidewalks to get up towards Essex Green and the library.
Access on Prospect from Eagle Rock would be a second priority. The sidewalk currently ends at Crystal Ave. It should be extended down to the light at Guerino Drive. A second access point for pedestrians should be created at the northeast end of Rooney Circle, shortening the trip back to the library. This would also be a logical place to add an additional bus stop to make the 71 more convenient.
Coming up Mount Pleasant from Gregory would be a bigger project to fix completely. But as a simple, short term solution, the area between Gregory Ave and the curve should be brought down to one lane in each direction. It’s only two lanes for that short stretch of road, and it encourages speeding. A road diet would be a simple way to make the route safer to walk or bike, even if a dedicated sidewalk or bike lane didn’t exist.
Prospect Ave from Northfield is probably the toughest approach to improve. It’s three quarters of a mile long, and some areas may not be wide enough for a sidewalk. But it’s worth exploring. This would have the added benefit of adding a walking route to the Seton Hall Prep sports complex.
Finally, Rooney Circle itself could use a road diet. The lanes are wider than they need to be and repainting the road would encourage safer behavior. The sidewalks along the perimeter of the shopping plaza should also be completed to make it safer for pedestrians.
If you want to swing big, you could also construct a shared use path from Pleasant Valley Way beneath the transmission wires to Marion Drive. It would shorten the trip to the library from the high school, and it would allow additional routes out of the back of Englishtown and the Essex Green Villas Condos. This would also connect to the Liberty Watergap Trail that heads towards western New Jersey.
Partner, Plan Ahead, and Pounce on Opportunity
Completing that whole vision in one go would be prohibitively expensive. It also lies partially outside the purview of our township, since it involves county roads and state highways.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not our concern or that we can’t make progress.
First, it is essential that West Orange has a strong relationship with the county. Most of our major thoroughfares are county roads, and we’re home to the Eagle Rock Reservation, South Mountain Reservation, Francis A. Byrne Golf Course, Turtleback Zoo, and the South Mountain Recreation Complex. Essex County has a huge footprint in West Orange, and it’s up to us to partner with them and lobby for improvements that will enhance our quality of life.
If you think this is impossible because they aren’t municipal roads, then I refer you back to where we started: Livingston Town Center. It faces the same issue. Each approach is a state highway or a county road. And each of them has a complete, safe sidewalk.
Second, we don’t need to do all of this at once. But we should be documenting possible improvements and prioritizing what can get done. A small project, like a sidewalk along Mt. Pleasant, could be a short term priority. And the rest could follow over time. But if you don’t plan ahead, then things will look the same in five or ten years.
Finally, we have to be prepared to pounce on opportunity. And that comes from a) nurturing relationships and b) planning ahead. When the state or federal government releases grant funds, we should be ready with projects that have already been sketched out and proven desirable. That may be grants that we use directly or it may be grants that the county earns and uses to improve roads in town.
Either way, we can improve Essex Green to make it more accessible, convenient, and safe. It would connect residents to a community space. It would also connect visitors at the hotels to local parks, like Crystal Lake and Eagle Rock Reservation. In the long term, this would also improve the vitality of the shopping plaza – attracting new tenants and/or encouraging the owners to make their own improvements.
This is also a reminder that we need a full-time town planner who can sketch out a cohesive vision for how to develop things in town – whether it’s Essex Green, Main Street, or the Valley.
If you want to see this move from vision to reality, then use this form to connect with the campaign. You can also read more about Complete Streets in West Orange here.