GETTING READY FOR SHOWTIME: PART ONE

At a special meeting of the City Council on January 26, the Council Members introduced three ordinances that will help bring about the construction of the 1888 Studios, a film and television production facility planned for the southwest corner of Bayonne.  That studio complex will be the greatest new source of jobs in Bayonne since World War II.  The former Texaco property, this land has been vacant since the 1980’s. Located west of the Bayonne Bridge in Bergen Point, the property has been the possible home of various projects - residential, industrial, and mixed-use.  They all fell through.  It’s time to turn the page.

This time, things are different.  The formerly-polluted ground has been fully cleaned up.  This waterfront property has been raised up by more than seventeen feet, in order to be above sea-level. French financier Arpad Busson has given his full support to the project.  His goal is to create an enormous entertainment production facility that will recall the best days of old Hollywood.  The future studio complex will measure 1.4 million square feet in size.  It will become Bayonne’s largest employer and biggest private taxpayer.  After the complex is fully up and running, it will produce an estimated $190 million in employee income per year.   Of the 2,100 or more film and TV production jobs, at least 660 will be set aside for Bayonne residents.  As Humphrey Bogart’s character, Sam Spade, said in the movie The Maltese Falcon, this is “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

From the 1870’s to the 1940’s, Bayonne grew to be an industrial city with oil refineries, chemical plants, and factories.  After World War II ended in 1945, Bayonne’s heavy industry began a long, slow decline. One after another, traditional industries went out of business or moved away. People complained that the jobs were going, going, gone.  The symbolic end to the industrial era took place a few years ago when Exxon-Mobil collapsed 150 oil tanks on Bayonne’s Constable Hook.  The property of Exxon-Mobil, the successor to Standard Oil, is being prepared for redevelopment.  A new era has begun in Bayonne.

The construction of the 1888 Studios will symbolize the rebirth of Bayonne’s economy in the 21st century.  The sons and daughters of the hands that once refined oil and made chemicals will now be producing movies and TV shows.

In the next column, I will discuss the financial preparations that will make the 1888 Studios a reality.