Tom Clark of CityWorks.
By Ron Shapella
The Amtrak train that runs between Washington and Boston — the Northeast’s great megalopolis — stops in Trenton, which must mean the capital of New Jersey is a “pretty important place,” says Tom Clark.
Or at least, it could be.
Clark is executive director of CityWorks, a Trenton nonprofit situated at 122 W. State St. In existence for nearly 10 years, CityWorks helps other nonprofit organizations in the development of commercial and other nonresidential real estate projects in economically distressed neighborhoods throughout New Jersey. That includes one in East Trenton.
Clark, 65, who was the organization’s first employee, sees Trenton as a prime place for redevelopment.
“Trenton’s got history, and it’s small enough that people can make a difference. The colleges that are here are making a difference. Little by little, (all of this) is eating away at some of the decay that happened. Unfortunately, the income level of the people who live here is below where you want it to be. People are hanging on, though, and want to see if the city can come back. It’s difficult,” says the single New Brunswick native.
At least one of Trenton’s historic neighborhoods — once one of the city’s former manufacturing hubs and now a neglected corner — is doing more than just hanging on, thanks to the East Trenton Collaborative.
The Collaborative came about when a couple of residents went to CityWorks and asked them to help them do some redevelopment work in the neighborhood, says Clark, who has experience in property and construction project management.
“This was in 2007, when money was easy. I went to a community meeting, and I told them a couple of one-off’s wouldn’t work here, so let’s do a community plan,” he says. About 25 residents were gathered, sharing opinions on where the best places to get started would be.
“We wanted to get the residents involved, bring in Isles with their great home-weatherization program, and Homefront with their job placement abilities,” he says
By then, CityWorks had a track record of success, including collaborations with organizations working in Trenton to make “urban blight” a term that has long outlived its usefulness.
The successes attracted a large group of large-cap funders, including Wells Fargo Bank, New Jersey Manufacturer’s, Johnson & Johnson and Reuters, along with philanthropic organizations like the Garfield Foundation in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the Fund for New Jersey in Princeton.
Then the State of New Jersey began to support the efforts. CityWorks had applications accepted by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for the neighborhood Reinvestment Tax Credit program, which allows companies generating more than $50 million in revenue to divert a portion of its taxable revenue to fund projects in New Jersey cities.
So far, CityWorks has qualified as the administering agency for three rounds of funding under this program, each valued at nearly $1 million, with funds designated for specific neighborhoods.
Now add a recently announced Princeton Area Community Foundation grant for $40,000 that would fund administrative costs for that East Trenton redevelopment project — a partnership of those residents and organizations working together to redevelop the section of the North Ward bordered by U.S. 1 to the west, the Assunpink Creek to the east, Lincoln Avenue to the south and Mulberry Street to the north. The intersection of North Clinton and North Olden Avenues marks the center of the neighborhood.
“The resources that once were provided by the city are no longer there,” Clark says. “The East Trenton Library is closed. The North Clinton community center closed.”
The plan that CityWorks hopes will take shape this fall calls for providing resources to reopen the East Trenton Library, as one of the focal points for the community. Classrooms will be set up for after-school instruction.
Andrew Carten, CityWorks’ director of project development, is doing much of the heavy lifting on the East Trenton Collaborative project.
Carten, 60, served as Trenton’s city planning director from 1987-2010. He lives in Lawrence with his wife of 33 years, Maria, a native of Brazil and a retired nurse who once worked at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. The two met when they worked in a Boston hospital, and have a daughter who recently earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University and a son who teaches English to businessmen in Brazil.
“I think my education and experience in my position as planning director taught me that the success of community planning in Trenton is not just bricks and mortar,” he says of his approach to projects such as the East Trenton Collaborative. “Ultimately, the successful redevelopment of a city is dependent on a more holistic approach. For a community to be stable and to keep building on its strengths, it has to become economically stable. And we also have found on the education front that individuals find it difficult to advance themselves when a support system is not in place. We look to see what systems are in place and where there are voids.”
In addition to potential use of the library, originally an orphanage for children of Union soldiers in the Civil War, the project would create an outdoor classroom in Page Park along the nearby Assunpink Creek, part of a city designated “greenway.” There is also an old cemetery nearby holding graves of African Americans. Carten says part of the vision for the project involves asking students, including from the College of New Jersey, to help do archaeological research on who might be buried there.
The outdoor classroom would also be available to children in two local elementary schools, Wilson School and Grant School.
Much of the project took shape after monthly meetings with East Trenton residents, Carten says.
In the future, the East Trenton Collaborative opens up a range of possibilities that would end up using important skills that each group in the partnership has honed in recent years: rehabbing buildings, which is Habitat for Humanity’s specialty; making sure they are weatherized, courtesy of Isles; providing training and job placement, which Homefront does, and ultimately, creating community gardens, which Isles has done in Trenton for many years, and, possibly, an urban farm that provided fresh produce that could be turned into nutritious meals, which CityWorks has done as part of its Elijah’s Promise project in New Brunswick.
“CityWorks can’t do everything by itself, and neither can Isles or Habitat,” Carten says. “But together and with continuing input from community residents we can offer the things they want and need.”
For more information on CityWorks and the East Trenton Collaborative, go to ecityworks.com.
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