Pop up Park of Dunellen

Public space is such an important part of building a community. Where else one can leisurely relax, enjoy the surrounding sites, people watch and eat and drink from your favorite restaurants and coffee shops. This is even more true when it comes to redevelopment of a downtown area. However, what can one do when there is no public space? What can one do when your downtown is a sea of asphalt? Well you develop a Pop-Up Park of course. What is that you may ask? It’s taking an underutilized space, usually a parking lot, and making it a community space by adding amenities such as tables and chairs, creating a space for live programming, and developing a destination for one’s downtown. Dunellen, located in Middlesex County along the Raritan Valley NJ Transit line, and in the midst of the redevelopment of their historic Downtown, recognized the importance of creating this community space. 

DMR Architects was retained by Dunellen in 2020 to foster their Downtown Vision plan. DMR embarked on a community engagement process to hear the voices of Dunellen residents on the vision of their downtown. With COVID, the community meetings were virtual and a survey was established. Over 437 residents and interested parties such as property owners, developers and individuals who frequent Downtown Dunellen completed the survey and provided important community feedback to assist in furthering this Downtown vision. One of the questions was would you like to see a pop up park on North Avenue. 91% of survey respondents said “yes”. Thus the pop up park initiative began.

First thing was where to locate this pop up park on North Avenue. The choice became obvious right away. Right across the street from Borough Hall, with frontage along North Avenue, steps from the train station, in the heart of downtown was a Dunellen Municipal parking lot utilized by the Dunellen Police.  So now the location has been decided, how does one make this reality? With the leadership of Mayor Jason Cilento, Council Members, the community and support from DMR Architects, CME Associates and Provident Bank the wheels became in motion and on June 12th a ribbon cutting was held with the Mayor, Council and community members who made the Pop Up Park happen. Mayor Jason Cilento, said “Community members were the key factors in this initiative. If it were not for the volunteers which included Council Members Rios & Sigmon, Borough employees, business owners, and residents; this project would not have gone from an idea to a reality. We worked from the initial concept plan and met weekly for 30 minutes and delegated responsibilities. We made sure all ideas were heard and then broke them down to practicality for the overall project. Again, we did this all volunteer based, so we had to create a plan that was effective and efficient and respectful to everyone’s time.”

The Pop Up Park community volunteers also worked with the Dunellen Arts and Culture Commission to develop streetscape aesthetics, pedestrian safety measure such as painted planters, and pallets that brought public art to the space. Furthermore the volunteers created the Pop Up Park logo and developed weekly programming such as Fairytale Fridays presented by the Dunellen Public Library, free dance classes, live music, yoga, table tennis and a selfie station with a Olympic torch in support of Dunellen’s own Olympic athlete Sydney McLaughlin who won gold and set a world record in the 400 hundred meter hurdles in Tokyo. Programming is vital for a successful pop up park. By having different types of scheduled events, and marketed on such avenues as social media, this will attract and make more people aware of the space to enjoy, support downtown and build community.

Dunellen is in the midst of redevelopment with over 600 of either planned or approved residential units and supporting new restaurant/commercial/retail space (anyone want to open a brewery, distillery or winery - come to Dunellen). Centered around the NJ Transit Station, with bus access to NYC, anchored by historic buildings and a walkable downtown, developers are attracted to the bones that Dunellen has, but also to the sense of community emulating from the streets. Mayor Cilento says "public space is so vital to economic growth not only of a single development project but for the overall downtown corridor. The increase in not only live-able density in development to help economic development, but the creation of public spaces provides people the opportunity to bring their lives onto the streets, which again, gives a better probability of them spending their money in the downtown. Where there is activity there are people. Where there are people, there’s better economic growth. And I’ll say it again, it all creates community.”

The Dunellen Pop Up Park is a perfect example of a volunteer community placemaking effort in transforming a municipal parking lot into a community space. As Mayor Cilento says “Dunellen is known as the volunteer town, we come together to make big things happen! That’s why I refer to it as the Miracle Mile and why the tag line for the pop up park is “Miracle Mile Means Community.” Because of this park we are creating a sense of community.” So come to Downtown Dunellen to explore the many restaurants, enjoy the walkable downtown and of course be a part of the Pop Up Park and the downtown community.