Catching up on a few news items around the Interwebs that relate to redevelopment locally in one way or another:
* Here’s not one but two stories from Hoboken Patch about temporary art studios filling vacant storefronts in Hoboken and “Empty Storefronts: Bad for the Economy; Good for Art.” If that idea sounds familiar, it’s because Mayor James Kennedy mentioned it earlier this year, patterning it after a similar program in Asbury Park.
* There’s also this Crain’s New York piece (“Bronx merchants’ artsy ambitions”) about leaders in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx turning the area into a “nexus of art and commerce.”
* Also, Cranford narrowly approved expanding its Special Improvement District (SID). If you recall, Rahway did the same, to include the Hamilton Street arts projects, but also shifted management of the SID funds (roughly $140,000 annually) from the Rahway Center Partnership to the Rahway Arts District.