Centre Pompidou Revives Plans for Jersey City Museum Nixed by Local Politicians

Paris’s Centre Pompidou is making a fresh attempt at opening a satellite museum in Jersey City several months after New Jersey politicians chose to pull funding from the project.

Under the Pompidou’s new plan, the museum will be sited in a new location and backed by a different financial arrangement. The finances of the previous plan were what led New Jersey politicians to nix the project, claiming that it would require too much taxpayer money to open the museum.

The plan was officially revived on September 11, when Jersey City’s City Council voted to move forward with the new plan. Under that new plan, the museum will now be located at 808 Pavonia Avenue, where it will take up 100,000 square feet, according to NJ.com. It is unclear, however, how much of that area will be exhibition space.

Crucially, the new plan does not include support from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which previously said that the Centre Pompidou’s Jersey City outpost was “no longer viable,” leading the project to be indefinitely postponed. Instead, a tax abatement will help make the project possible.

“The future is bright, and I think any reasonable person can see the meaningful benefits to Jersey City here,” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop wrote in an op-ed published earlier this month by Hudson County View. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Last Thursday, after that op-ed was published, the Jersey City Council officially accepted the abatement plan.

In that op-ed, Fulop claimed Governor Phil Murphy had “reversed” his support for the Jersey City museum because Fulop did not come out in favor of Murphy’s wife, Tammy Murphy, who mounted a campaign to become a state senator. She dropped out of the race months before state politicians pulled the plug on the project.

While the Jersey City project has become ensnared in local politics, Pompidou officials have forged onward with the hope of realizing their plans.

“It is a very active site,” Charles Aubin, a curator with the museum, told NJ.com. “It is part of the DNA of the Pompidou.”