The former Somerville municipal landfill, located adjacent to the NJ Transit station, operated between 1954 and 1984. In 1998 the site was designated an Area in Need of Redevelopment; the Redevelopment Plan for the Borough of Somerville Station Area and Adjacent Landfill was completed in 2007. The Plan details a number of objectives for the redevelopment including new housing options, support for economic development, and pedestrian connections between the redeveloped areas, the Somerville downtown commercial district, and the NJ Transit train station.
Objective Twelve of the Redevelopment Plan is to "provide a network of open spaces for Somerville residents, connecting active and passive recreation areas between the Raritan River and the downtown core, including existing community resources such as the Peter's Brook Greenway and the Old Dutch Parsonage." This open space portion of the Redevelopment Plan is the "Green Seam"—a corridor of open space that will connect The Hub (high density mixed use commercial land use), The Heights (moderate density town houses, low rise apartments, and office land use), and the existing commercial downtown businesses.
To provide design options for consideration by the Borough of Somerville the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES) will address the Green Seam in a Studio Design Course during the spring 2014 semester. Upon completion of the studio, CUES will solicit community inputs, and based upon direction from the Borough of Somerville will produce a final Conceptual Design for the Green Seam, with particular focus on the wetlands, stormwater management, and connections to the other amenities and redeveloped areas.