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September 9, 2025
ULI Philadelphia is recruiting 8-11 members to serve on a two-day Technical Assistance Panel (TAP), October 9 – 10, 2025.
The city of Trenton is a riverfront city that runs for 5.5 miles along the Delaware River. Of those 5.5 miles, the majority of the riverfront is inaccessible to the city’s 90,000 residents. The major barrier to the river is NJ Route 29, which runs along the City’s riverfront and restricts public access from the city. This road was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s as a limited access, high-speed highway despite the opposition of residents, eliminating a major riverfront park. A federally funded urban renewal project demolished a diverse and mixed-use neighborhood, and the construction of NJ Route 29 cut off the City from its greatest natural resource, the Delaware River. The combination of the highway construction and failed urban renewal program contributed towards long-term population decline and poverty in Trenton and had a major impact on the economic vitality of underserved populations. For several decades community members have expressed and documented within plans the desire to reconnect to the river, reestablish a riverfront community and park, and convert NJ Route 29 to an urban boulevard.
In 2009, NJDOT completed a feasibility assessment which identified a preferred alternative for the realignment of NJ29 into an urban boulevard, by bringing the highway inland and at grade, lowering the speed limit, installing traffic signals, providing well-marked crosswalks, and connecting side streets.
Several attempts to build on the 2009 feasibility assessment sputtered. However, in 2023 Mercer County received federal funding to undertake a Local Concept Development Study, which will update the 2009 feasibility assessment, reevaluate alternatives to the present highway under current regulatory and environmental requirements, and identify a path forward into design and construction for a new locally preferred alternative, for the portion of NJ29 bounded by Cass Street on the south, and the interchange with Calhoun Street, extending just north of the Calhoun Street Bridge. The new Local Concept Development study now underway will include an economic analysis, including a market analysis, assessment of development strategies, and fiscal and economic impact analyses, which will seek to quantify the direct fiscal/tax and broader economic impacts of the proposed project for Trenton and the surrounding area.

Illustrative Master Plan with conceptual building footprints and street alignments from 2009 Feasibility Assessment – Preferred Alternative (Dewberry Companies Inc, 2009)
The ULI TAP will supplement and inform these analyses to ensure that they are as creative and comprehensive as possible, to help the consultant team and key stakeholders to understand and effectively communicate to all stakeholders the varied impacts, benefits, and advancement strategies for a complex, generational project of this scale. Included in the redesign of NJ29 is the proposed redevelopment of the adjacent state-owned surface parking lots to be utilized as potential development opportunities, while strengthening the balance of the downtown, including the economies on State Street and Broad Street, and the nearby cultural, civic, and historic assets as well as the proximity to the Trenton Transit Center, a major rail hub. The project partners are seeking recommendations on identifying steps government and private entities can take to invest in and incentivize the economic revitalization for the city of Trenton, along with ways to balance innovative ideas with pragmatic solutions, short and long term, to maintain momentum for this work.
Questions:
Additional Resources:
Professional experience needed:
Panelist Expectations
Important Dates
Panelist Application Deadline | September 8, 2025
TAP Dates | October 9 – 10, 2025
Intersection of Market Street and William Trent Pl – possible access point to new waterfront park space.
Downtown Trenton – Historic Mill Hill
Downtown Trenton – intersection of Market Street and South Broad Street
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Intersection of Market Street and William Trent Pl – possible access point to new waterfront park space.
Downtown Trenton – Historic Mill Hill
Downtown Trenton – intersection of Market Street and South Broad Street