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Dickens Village Versus Transit Village

Maplewood Village - THEATER / BANK Redevelopment Zone

Inda Sechzer, Neighbor

Posted Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 1:56 pm ET|Updated Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 4:10 pm ET

Dickens Village in Maplewood, New Jersey (lovetoliveinmaplewood.blogspot.com)

Dickens Village Versus Transit Village

Maplewood Village - THEATER / BANK Redevelopment Block

– A Creeping Malaise –

By Inda M. Sechzer, Maplewood, New Jersey - July 29, 2025

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One of the wonderful things about living in Maplewood, New Jersey is that we celebrate together year-round as a community, including Halloween, Memorial Day, An old fashioned Fourth of July, and a Dickens Village assembled on the original town green, Ricalton Square, each winter. Dickens Village is a grouping of diminutive period buildings representing scenes from Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”.

Viewing Dickens Village is as if opening a nested matryoshka doll. It is a miniature village set within our little Village. In effect, Dickens Village exemplifies, accentuates, and reflects the small-scale intimacy of our town that has continually attracted so many to settle here. Dickens Village has been a tradition for more than 60 years. It is a strong symbol of our shared sense of community.

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Dickens Village reminds us of what we love about Maplewood

Now is the time to speak up to preserve our own Historic Village

Everyone who lives here knows that Maplewood is a very special place. It is small town America barely 20 miles from Manhattan, and this proximity makes it that much more unique. It is a small town with big city values, an incredibly inclusive community encompassing a wide spectrum of socio-economic levels and diverse constellations of household inhabitants. This town is chock full of people who are not merely tolerant, but rather who celebrate the differences among themselves. For these reasons, many of us chose to set roots and raise our children here. Many of our grown children express their gratitude at having been raised in this milieu, and few find anything comparable elsewhere.

The historic center of Maplewood is aptly called The Village because of its small-scale intimacy. Less than half a dozen blocks long, The Village has remained remarkably similar to the Village it was at the turn of the last century, inseparably linked to the National and State registered 1902 train station. The Village sits on a narrow two-lane winding road. There is no large, typical suburban thoroughfare running through it. In fact, to access The Village one must navigate narrow residential streets dotted with historic century old homes. It is a hidden jewel.

We often hear about “Transit Oriented Design” (TOD) in Maplewood. TOD is appropriate for and has been quite successful for depressed urban areas such as Elizabeth and Jersey City, as well as for ex-urban, sprawling, car dependent areas such as West Windsor. For older, more compact communities such as Maplewood, which has been a walkable commuter community spanning three centuries (yes, the train came through in the 1840s), such development is inappropriate and overwhelming to the existing intimate scale and context. Maplewood Village is clearly not in a depressed or underdeveloped area. For Maplewood to move forward successfully, new development need NOT model TOD.

The Redevelopment Plan being created by our Township Committee specifically for the Maplewood Village Theater/Bank block allows more over-scaled TOD type buildings to be erected in this prime location. The Redevelopment Zone includes the full block including our historic Theater and Bank buildings, which are in negotiation or already sold to developers. Some of the buildings in the Zone are proposed to be demolished, potentially including the historic 1927 Maplewood Theater that goes back to the vaudeville era with renowned actors. Over the years actors who performed in Maplewood included Rudolph Valentino, Helen Hayes, Ethel Barrymore, Tallulah Bankhead, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Robeson and more.

This redevelopment is projected to include retail, multistory apartments, and tenant only parking. A very high density figure is proposed. Per the newly approved Housing Element of the Township Master Plan, up to 100 new apartments are permitted just in that block. If built, the proposed new buildings will max out the block and tower over and dwarf the surrounding area downhill, bookending the upper part of the Village along with the Clarus, which is already over-scaled.

There is also the highly important issue of historic preservation. The two prominent anchor buildings, the Maplewood Bank and Theater are essential components of the National and State registered Maplewood Village Historic District. These century old buildings must be preserved and adaptively re-used in combination with any new construction. Any intervention of new construction in the Village must be of an appropriate scale in proportion to the majority of the existing buildings which reflect the intimacy of the Village. As well, new construction must be either of a style reflecting the history of the Village or high-quality modern construction. “Fast-Casual Architecture” is not appropriate for our Village. This building type, as seen at the recently erected buildings at
7 West Parker Venue and the Avalon on Boyden Avenue, reflects uninspired generic design.

Although the Township Committee has previously stated that there is no intention of applying for official Transit Village designation, the current Redevelopment Plan specifically expresses Transit Village/TOD goals in terms of size and use, and states that the Redevelopment Zone is especially well-suited to the TOD design paradigm.

We all know that Maplewood is much more of a “Dickens Village” than a “Transit Village”. It is quaint, historic, and of a scale proportional to its size. Change is often desirable, but the push for continuously and significantly increasing scale and density will be detrimental to the unique ambiance and historic character of our unique Village. Development must be thoughtful, appropriate, and sensitive to the context of our historic, National and State registered Historic Village.

Maplewood has developed a serious problem. It is a problem of a creeping malaise. With some exceptions, residents and merchants did not take a proactive roll regarding the Post Office site, the Baker Street site, or other recent development projects in or near the Village. Transparency has improved somewhat in recent years, but the lack of open dialog on specific design alternatives leaves the public with an empty sense of purpose and control. The malaise thus engendered results in the Township Committee making decisions in a vacuum, falling short of the stated ideals of transparency, communication, and engagement with the public, whose voices they were elected to represent.

Indeed, after over a year of work on this Redevelopment area, the Township has yet to make substantive comments in response to many hours of community input, efforts to propose design concepts, and the general public disapproval of the current draft document.

This vicious cycle must come to an end

Our township officials have long dedicated themselves to the betterment of all in Maplewood. However, we must demand that our local government reflect who we are as citizens of this very special, unique town. We must be provided with real time factual data as a basis for the decision-making process so that we may in turn provide informed input to our elected representatives.

Township officials intend to finalize this Redevelopment Plan very soon. The Theater and Bank buildings may come to be owned by developers who are intent on TOD development as soon as January. It is essential that you contact your local governmental representatives NOW and make your voice heard loud and clear. Let’s let them know that Maplewood deserves a higher standard with timely community engagement.

There are only a handful of statutory steps remaining in this process. Before those are underway the community must have the opportunity to interact with the developer(s) and their design team(s). Community engagement in the very near-term is the only mechanism to ensure that the new zoning results in desirable changes to Maplewood Township’s Village, a historic treasure where our common history and values are so well represented.