Hoboken Opens New Public Gym to Accommodate Explosive Demand for Recreation

The City of Hoboken cut the ribbon on its new multi-purpose gymnasium at 7^th and Jackson Streets on Wednesday—the second of two City-run public gyms in an area that is seeing significant residential redevelopment.

“We are striving every day to improve our recreation programming for residents of all ages,” said Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, “and the new facility has already resulted in more children participating in basketball leagues than ever before.”

City of Hoboken photo

According to the City, Hoboken has been able to accommodate a 16% increase the amount of children participating in recreation basketball from 694 in 2019 to 832 participants in 2020. Furthermore, the new gymnasium has also allowed the City to add an additional division for girls in grades 5-8 while expanding the total amount of teams at younger levels.

The gymnasium is built directly next to a new resiliency park and open lawn right next door, designed to take in 450,000+ gallons of rain to mitigate flooding in what is historically an area that sees a lot of flood events.

You may not see it now at our new park at 7th/Jackson but installed underground is a detention system to withhold 450,000+ gallons of rain to mitigate flooding. Our parks are a part of a comprehensive strategy to make Hob more resilient from heavy rain, effects of climate change pic.twitter.com/DH5g5SQRzL

— Ravinder S. Bhalla (@RaviBhalla) July 1, 2019

The park is part of the redevelopment initiatives of former Mayor Dawn Zimmer. “I’m extremely proud of my Administration’s role in ensuring that new development projects include significant neighborhood benefits,” said Zimmer. “This gymnasium will provide much needed play space for important community groups like the Jubilee Center as well as for Hobokenites of all ages.”

The gym and park were built as part of a development agreement with Bijou Properties, whose substantial, 424-unit 7 Seventy House looms one block over from the gym and park.

“As a Hoboken-based company, we take a civic minded approach to every development project. This means working closely with the City and local community to ensure its needs are met,” said Larry Bijou, Managing Partner of Bijou Properties. That was certainly the case at the award-winning 7 Seventy House and the end result was this state-of-the-art, 6,835 square-foot gym, as well as the accompanying two-acre resiliency park.”

The new gymnasium will offer open gym time for adults on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays from 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm. No reservation is necessary, and the gym will be open on a first come, first serve basis. Additional gym time for children will be added in the coming weeks once the final schedule of programming is finalized for the winter. For any requests for the rental of the gym, please email recreation@hobokennj.gov.

City of Hoboken photo

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