When the Centre Pompidou first announced in 2021 that it would open a satellite museum in Journal Square in an abandoned historic building, there were few objectors. Many believed a world-class art institution was the last puzzle piece in a neighborhood already undergoing a vast transformation. The best part of all, it would be backed by state funding.
Three years later, the original plan is dead in the water. Earlier this year, Tim Sullivan, chief executive officer of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, wrote to the museum’s president in a letter declaring the project “no longer feasible.”
Although Mayor Steven Fulop made the troubling allegation that Governor Phil Murphy rescinded support and funding for the project after Fulop refused to back his wife, Tammy Murphy, in her campaign for U.S. Senate, Sullivan listed a litany of reasons, including doubts about how it would be funded.
But Fulop hasn’t given up on the museum and neither, apparently, has the Centre Pompidou. Plan B is to hitch the project to a real estate proposal at 808 Pavonia Avenue and get City Council to pass a 30-year tax abatement — the first abatement in seven years — for the project along with increasing fees of property owners in the Special Improvement District.
The project will now move from the 58,000-square-foot space within a city-owned property to an even larger 100,000-square-foot space at 808 Pavilion Avenue within the Kushner Real Estate Group’s proposed 50-story tower. Now, the opposition is coming out in droves.
“Given the rise in taxes, given the extraordinary needs before the city when it comes to affordable homes, better schools, more youth opportunity,” said Councilman James Solomon, one of three council members who voted to withdraw the ordinance on first reading. “I just don’t think this is the right direction to go in, while respecting the motives of those who are pushing for it.”
Meanwhile, Jersey Digs’s questions to the mayor’s press secretary still go unanswered about why the mayor is proposing to move the scrapped project to an even larger space, when many assumed that if the project was going to survive, it would have to be scaled back.
Samuel Pott, the founder of a local arts organization Nimbus Dance, said that presenting such a large plan “with so little notice” was “irresponsible.” He was also skeptical of Fulop’s projection that the museum would earn $23 million in revenue, making it the state’s second largest arts organization, in its first year.
“You think that this organization is going to be able to open its doors and within the first year generate funding that surpasses what the New Jersey Symphony can generate?” Potts asked during the public comment session at the September city council meeting. “We need to start investing locally in Jersey City.”
No one in the general public can divine exactly what Fulop’s end goal is. The few questions Jersey Digs sent to his press secretary still go unanswered a week later. Perhaps that’s part of the strategy. It’s an odd one, especially for a gubernatorial candidate, when there is increased scrutiny on his way of governing.
The only thing we can assume – and this is for those feeling generous – is that Fulop believes Centre Pompidou will lift the profile of Journal Square and be the catalyst for creating a bonafide arts district as the neighborhood was in the past when venues like the Stanley Theater packed houses. The nearby Loews Theater, the grand dame of historic performance halls, is already undergoing a $130 million renovation – funded in part by tax credits from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the same organization that turned its back on the Centre Pompidou.
Michael Ehrmann, chairman of the Journal Square Community Association, argued in an op-ed published in Jersey City Times that when Centre Pompidou opened in Malaga, it helped turn the city – previously known for little more than Pablo Picasso’s birthplace – into a mecca for the arts. Ehrmann believes the same could happen to Journal Square.
“Thanks to its new culturally-based prosperity, Malaga is thriving with a new subway system, a refurbished waterfront, and numerous public improvements in both the business and residential districts,” Erhmann wrote.
However, Potts told Jersey Digs that he questions whether it’s fair to compare Jersey City’s future to Malaga. “I’ve been here for 20 years and it’s difficult to get cultural consumers to come to Jersey City – I can’t compete with Lincoln Center,” Potts said. “It’s doubtful that the Centre Pompidou can win customers over from the Whitney or the Museum of Modern Art.”
One of the biggest issues with the current iteration of the Centre Pompidou is that no one knows anymore what exactly it aspires to be. Pott said he attended the Centre Pompidou’s community meeting in September at the Hudson County Community College, where the museum officials were walking back their ambitions, describing the project as a community center.
Perhaps the new sales pitch to community members was to appease those who don’t see the local benefit of paying for the museum with taxpayers’ dollars or perhaps because the museum’s brass is unsure about its funding sources, Potts wondered.
Is it a world-class art venue that attracts tourism or a community center with more local ambitions? And until that’s clear, it’s difficult for community members to trust projections of revenue that Fulop keeps trumpeting, Potts said.
“I’ve built Jersey City’s largest arts organization from the ground up and this is not how you go about building an institution,” Potts said. “If they can come up with the funding elsewhere, that would be great for the city.”
