NUTLEY, NJ-Planners are cooking up some creative solutions to finding a re-mix for the Roche Pharmaceuticals campus here, according to early word leaking out from initial chats between city officials, Roche and real estate executives.

Besides retail, a hotel/conference center and a science park are possibilities, according to a report in The Record. Developers have told GlobeSt.com that retail is a natural for the location on the Nutley/Clifton border, hard by the Garden State Parkway. Apartment units could also be fashioned from some of the existing structures, or built elsewhere on the 119-acre campus that is best known for the blue-glass Roche office tower.

Roche officials are set to meet with the Clifton City Council and the Nutley Township Board of Commissioners on Jan. 23 to hear proposals from four planning firms that are competing to produce a master plan for the campus, which Roche plans to shutter by 2015.

The planning firms vying for the project are Phillips Priess Grygiel, Elkus Manfredi Architects, Perkins Eastman, and AJS Capital Holdings LLC.

“The planner's job is to help us come up with an overlay plan or a redevelopment plan for all the property so when it is put up for sale, we'll have a direct plan,” Clifton Mayor James Anzaldi has stated. “It will make it easier for a developer in this sense: they'll know what's going to be allowed, and secondly, it will make sure the cities are protected, the quality of life is protected.”

The mayor noted that managing traffic flow around the site is one top concern.

Instant Insights /

Roche Site: Ideas Flow for How to Remake It

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