The Newark Regional Business Partnership hosted another Insiders Forum, a discussion series that revolves around current affairs in local and global business and policy. The most recent Insiders Forum featured Mayor Baraka along with Baye Adofo-Wilson, Deputy Mayor for Economic and Housing Development, Jack Kelly, City of Newark Business Administrator, Amina Bey, Director of the Workforce Development Board, and Phillip Scott, Director of the Department of Engineering.
Mayor Baraka spoke about the increasingly fast-paced progression that Newark is currently experiencing – particularly in the small business and corporate sectors. “I’m glad we’re having the debates now that we weren’t having years ago. We’re debating now about gentrification, and housing, and retail. We’re having debates about how we prepare Broad & Market for the incoming residents and tourists, and who we want to sell our City buildings to, and how we’re managing the City – debates that we weren’t having years ago.” Newark’s infrastructure can support 200,000 more residents in the city. However, the residential development has to be delicately guided so that it doesn’t favor landlords at the expense of current residents, nor does it not allow landlords to collect the income required to receive a return on their investment and afford to make consistent improvements to their properties over time.
Phillip Scott spoke on new challenges that Newark faces and plans for future growth including new concepts and ideas on the table to manage road traffic, especially at Newark’s gateway roads and thoroughfares like Broad Street, Route 21. He also spoke on the real estate inventory that the City maintains. Currently, there are 68 city-owned buildings in our 350 year-old city. The City has done numerous development and energy studies and audits on it’s buildings, and with the consistent progression nationally and globally toward clean-living, green-living, and energy efficiency, the City is understandably trying to make sure it stays at pace with energy efficiency.
Amina Bey spoke shared interesting information on the summer youth employment program. Interestingly, federal government requires 75% of funding to be spent on out-of-school youth. That means that the support structure for employment is especially focused on young adults who are out of high school yet unemployed, a population that has the highest likelihood to engage in violent crime. She also spoke on the progress that has been made since this administration began – an 11.2% unemployment rate when this administration began is now reduced to about 7%. On the subject of Newark’s youth, Mayor Baraka said that the discussions are changing about how our children are being educated. As long as resources are being taken from one place to the next, there will always be a fight for resources. There are innovative programs happening at various Newark schools. And he expressed his belief that parents should be given real choice as to the school that they send their children to – choices that includes convenience as well as the programs and services that individual schools have to offer.
Director Bey also made mention of the large disparity in employment of Newark residents at Newark businesses. Only 18% of Newark employees are Newark residents. And only about half of them are Newark natives. There is a misconception among employers that qualified employees do not exists in Newark. However, projects such as the new Shop-Rite supermarket on Springfield Ave and Hotel Indigo on Broad Street have prioritized the hiring, training, and retaining of Newark residents and have shown that misconception to be fundamentally flawed.
The discussion also touched on the administration’s engagement in making sure that Newark receives it’s fare share from businesses operating in the City. Jack Kelly spoke on the partnerships and agreements made with companies like Uber and Air BNB, who are doing a phenomenal amount of business in the city. Mayor Baraka also talked about the challenges faced when engaging the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey about Port Newark. The port occupies a huge amount of the city’s land and it’s a priority of the City administration to ensure that the asset is managed properly and that the City collects on the use of land. The land that Port Newark sits on is worth approximately $1 million/acre. Some of the conversations that the city is having with Port Authority include ceding some of the land back to the city, a conversation that hasn’t been had in years if ever. Aside from the money to be collected, the administration is also keenly interested in Port Authority’s master plan and ensuring that it serves the greater good of the City as well as the organization.
Deputy Mayor Wilson spoke to the current development projects that are seen throughout Newark, like the Gateways to Newark mural project on Route 21. He also talked about some of the upcoming larger scale projects like Triangle Park and Riverfront Park prioritize connecting residents and city-goers and tourists to Newark Penn Station and Prudential Center. Designs are expected to come in this summer and construction is expected to start next year.
An enlightening discussion all around, it was made clear that this administration is very focused on the business of running the City.
