Rahway, New Jersey

that, through the red tape, we’re not moving the goal line at the last minute and that they come in here and they understand from A to Z what they have to do to get opened. When a city makes that process smooth and seamless, it makes their transition a lot smoother and it really incentivizes people to want to move and invest into the city.” To entice people and businesses further, Rahway recently developed several high-end apartment complexes, some with retail spaces at street level. The Mint is a 200-plus unit apartment complex with retail on the bottom that just opened their doors at the beginning of 2020. The Gramercy of Rahway is a new 42-unit boutique apartment complex on Cherry St., and REVA Rahway just opened behind City Hall – that is a 200-unit luxury rental apartment complex. Giacobbe is proud of the efforts that saw an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the downtown transformed. “The Brownstones is a unique project,” he enthuses. “The site was contaminated and for decades sat as an abandoned industrial building right on West Grand Avenue and Elizabeth Avenue, which is a main road that come into the city from Route 1&9. To be able to get a developer to remediate the contamination and put a brand new, beautiful structure on there was a huge victory for our City and our development efforts.” One of the City’s polished gems, the Union County Performing Arts Center, is a 1,300-seat facility where artists of many genres delight audiences. Originally constructed in 1928, it too was brought back from the rubble to become a cultural beacon. The building at one point was a triple X theatre, which was completely transformed into a stunning performing arts venue that draws people who may not have previously ventured into downtown Rahway. Union County College has a satellite site in Rahway that enables youth to follow their passion in performing arts. And the city is also home to a 200-seat boutique arts centre, Mayor, Raymond Giacobbe