Here's How The Carteret Ferry Terminal Will Look; Town Awards Contract To Build It

CARTERET, NJ — The borough of Carteret released these renderings Wednesday of how its proposed ferry terminal will look.

The ferry terminal will be built next to Carteret's existing Waterfront Park, on a seven-acre piece of property that used to be owned by DuPont chemical company.

Carteret received three bids to build the ferry terminal and on Oct. 31, the town awarded a $47.5 million contract to Brockwell & Carrington Contractors of Towaco, NJ to build it. Their's was the lowest of the three bids that met all the specifications, said the town. Brockwell & Carrington expects to break ground before the year is over, and aims to open the terminal by early 2028 or sooner.

However, ferry service may start running before that, as customers can purchase tickets through a smartphone app on a kiosk on the dock of the ferry slips, said Carteret Mayor Dan Reiman, who has been aggressively pushing to bring daily New York City ferry service to his town.

Carteret already has two ferry boats: The Theodore Roosevelt is docked at the Carteret town marina, and the second is under construction in New Orleans.

However, Carteret has not yet inked a deal with a ferry service provider. Neither Seastreak and NY Waterway answered this summer when asked if they talked with Carteret about running the ferries. For comparison, NY Waterways has been running daily ferry service from South Amboy to Lower Manhattan for the past two years, starting in October 2023.

In August, the town of Carteret said they would even consider running the ferries themselves, if they cannot secure a ferry provider.

"There will be two to three stops in Manhattan leaving about three or four times a day and arriving back to Carteret three or four times a day," Reiman said this week. "Three or four times in the morning and three or four times in the evening. That’s the initial projection. We’ll increase that as ridership demands."

So far, work that's been done on Carteret ferry service is the town installed bulkhead along the Arthur Kill waterfront and dredged the Arthur Kill where the ferries will dock. Reiman said the town plans to start building a 700-space on-site parking lot later this November.

The Carteret ferry terminal will be several floors and each floor will be approximately 13,000 square feet, according to architect Tom Potter of Potter Architects in Union. The terminal will have a ticketing/seating area on the first floor, restrooms, a bar/lounge, a restaurant, retail and office space for lease and even an event hall.

NJ Transit buses will pick up and drop passengers off at the ferry terminal. The town also plans to launch a jitney bus that will pick people up throughout Carteret, plus the Rahway and Woodbridge train stations, and take them to the ferry terminal.

Carteret ferry service is part of Reiman's vision to open Carteret’s once inaccessible, completely industrial waterfront for public use. Under his administration, the town opened a fishing pier, a public park, a mini golf course and a 185-slip boat marina at Cateret's Waterfront Park. Reiman even wants a hotel and movie studio to open there one day.

Brockwell & Carrington's past projects include Woodbridge Middle School and Woodbrook Elementary School in Edison.

Carteret: We'll Run Ferry Service Ourselves If We Can't Secure Provider (August 2025)