Twenty-five years is a long time to wait for a foundation. That is roughly how long Bruce Sherman and the nonprofit he founded around 2000 have been trying to put a performing arts center on the Weehawken shoreline, through the 2008 crash, Superstorm Sandy, and the pandemic. This spring, the shovels finally moved. The waterfront that residents currently know as a strip of restaurants, a ferry terminal, and a light rail stop is quietly becoming something with a civic center.
If you live here, the summer of 2026 is a good moment to walk the two miles between Lincoln Harbor and Port Imperial and notice what has changed since last year.
The building that took 25 years
At 300 Port Imperial Avenue, an 11-story structure is topping out near the ferry terminal. Port Imperial South Site 3 is designed by Lessard Design and developed by Canoe Brook Development and Roseland Properties, and it will yield 313 market-rate apartments, a performing arts center, and 296 below-grade parking spots. The residential piece is the visible part. The reason it matters to the rest of the neighborhood sits on the ground floor.
The $25 million performing arts center will span 23,000 square feet across the ground floor facing the Hudson River, feature a main 300-seat theater and a smaller venue with fewer than 100 seats, and serve as the new home for Hudson Theater Works. The center is expected to be deeded to Weehawken Township upon completion.
A few details are worth holding onto if you have been watching the site from Boulevard East:
- Why the waterfront had no public building before now. A groundbreaking ceremony this week officially launched construction on a roughly $25 million performing arts center, a project that officials and developers say has been in the works for over two decades, and the site will stand as the waterfront's first public building.
- Who will actually use it. Frank Licato, artistic director of Hudson Theatre Works, and Gregory Erbach, the company's producing director, said the new center resolves a persistent challenge; the company has operated out of four different spaces over the years because suitable venues in Hudson County have been difficult to secure.
- When to expect the doors to open. The developers hope to have the performing arts center open within two years.
For residents who have been going to concerts on borrowed lawns for a generation, that last line is the one to circle.
What's playing on the lawn until then
The concert series predates the building by a couple of decades and is the reason the building exists. To keep the arts mission going in the meantime, the nonprofit launched two concert series, Summer Concerts on the Hudson, underwritten by UBS and Hartz Mountain Industries and still active at Lincoln Harbor Park, and the indoor UBS Atrium Series, which runs through the fall, winter, and spring seasons.
The format is straightforward. Free summer concerts on the Hudson River waterfront in Weehawken with the stunning backdrop of the NYC skyline, family friendly outdoor evening concerts featuring unique programs of Jazz, Rock, Folk, Broadway, Flamenco, Tango, Modern Dance, and more, seating available but bring your own lawn chairs, blankets, and a picnic dinner. If you have lived here more than a season, you already know the drill. If you moved into one of the Port Imperial buildings in the last year, this is the local ritual you have been missing.
The Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center posts the current lineup on its site. This year's roster includes Grammy-winning pianist Matthew Whitaker and a Linda Ronstadt tribute by American Idol alum Tristan McIntosh, which tells you the programming is not quite the community band night you might assume.
The Lincoln Harbor dining row, block by block
The stretch of Harbor Boulevard between the Sheraton and the ferry has gone through a slow renovation. Restaurateur Jeremy Casilli, who also runs Hudson & Co. in Jersey City and Pier 115 in Edgewater, took over a space that had been dark for years. DRIFT Restaurant + Bar is the latest addition to the Lincoln Harbor area of Weehawken, and formerly occupied by Houlihan's, the 17,000-square-foot space had been vacant since 2019. A highlighted feature is the state-of-the-art rotating dining platform, offering NYC skyline views, an innovative design that completes a full rotation every hour ensuring every guest enjoys an unparalleled dining experience.
Here is how the row reads if you are walking north from the ferry terminal toward Lincoln Harbor.
| Restaurant | Address | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Blu on the Hudson | 1200 Harbor Blvd area | The Weehawken flagship. Blu on the Hudson is expanding to Livingston, planning a spring 2026 opening at 277 Eisenhower Parkway in the Shoppes at Livingston, and the new location will mirror the Weehawken menu with seafood towers, premium steaks, and a curated beverage program. |
| DRIFT | 1200 Harbor Blvd | The interior offers a 100-foot brass and green-tiled bar, Terrazzo flooring, cognac leather banquettes, and oversized olive trees, with a lounge featuring stainless steel arches and semi-private dining for sixty. |
| Chart House | 1700 Harbor Blvd | The long-running steakhouse with a straight-shot skyline view. Reservations move fast on Saturdays. |
| Faubourg Weehawken | 1500 Harbor Blvd | DRIFT contributes to the transformation along the Hudson, joining other popular spots like Faubourg Weehawken. |
Two things worth noting if you have not been down in a while. Located near the Weehawken Ferry Terminal, ownership aims to offer an alternative to the potential stress of Manhattan dining. That is a real shift. Five years ago the pitch was "come here for the view of the city you'd rather be in." Now the row is trying to be the destination on its own terms.
Hamilton Park versus Lincoln Harbor Park
Weehawken has two waterfront-adjacent parks that residents tend to conflate, and they are used for very different things.
Hamilton Park sits up on Boulevard East, roughly 200 feet above the river. The address is 773 Boulevard East, and Hamilton Park offers a stunning view of the NYC skyline with benches, greenery, and a beautiful lawn. This is the historic site of the most famous duel in American history between Alexander Hamilton and Colonel Aaron Burr. It is a viewing park. You go there to look. If you are hosting out-of-town family, this is the fifteen-minute stop between dinner and the ferry back. If you're around for the 4th of July, the fireworks from here are amazing. If you have not staked out a spot on Boulevard East for Macy's fireworks before, plan for early afternoon arrival, not early evening.
Lincoln Harbor Park sits at river level. That is where the HRPAC concerts happen and where a picnic actually makes sense. Two parks, two elevations, two different summer routines.
A single evening that uses all of it
If you are trying to explain the current state of the waterfront to someone who last visited in 2023, here is a compressed loop that covers the changes:
- 6:00 p.m. Walk down to Lincoln Harbor Park with a folding chair. Check the HRPAC lineup earlier in the week so you know whether the night is jazz, tango, or Broadway revue.
- 7:00 p.m. Concert. The skyline lights come up during the second set in July, closer to the first in August.
- 8:30 p.m. Dinner along Harbor Boulevard. DRIFT if you want the rotation gimmick to be a conversation piece, Blu on the Hudson if you want the version that has been getting it right for a decade, Chart House if you want steak without surprises.
- 10:00 p.m. Walk south along the waterfront path to the base of 300 Port Imperial Avenue. The building is up far enough now that you can see where the theater lobby will open onto the river.
- 10:30 p.m. Ferry, light rail, or the ten-minute walk home, depending on which part of Weehawken you actually live in.
The ferry math is unchanged from last summer. Ferry tickets from Weehawken to Manhattan typically cost around $10 one-way, but prices can fluctuate, so it's best to check the official NY Waterway website or app for the most current fares. The terminal is served by buses and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, making it easy to connect from various points in New Jersey.
What a current resident should probably know
A few things that only matter if you actually live here.
The building at 300 Port Imperial is not a rental play that happens to include a theater. The $25 million performing arts center, built through a public-private partnership with Roseland Properties and Rockpoint, will feature a 300-seat main theater and a 60–100 seat smaller venue, and construction is expected to take 18 to 20 months; the township retains naming rights and will furnish the interior while developers handle the build. Read that sentence twice. The town owns the finish-out. That means programming will not be dictated purely by whoever is signing the biggest check.
The Lincoln Harbor restaurant row has a founding architect. Carl Goldberg, Managing Partner of Canoe Brook Development, one of the Port Imperial developers alongside Roseland Properties, said the goal of anchoring the waterfront with a shared civic space was present from the start of the development effort in 2000; Mayor Turner set a clear standard early on that commercial success in Weehawken required genuine integration with the community, not just physical presence on its shoreline; Goldberg described both the park and the performing arts center as tangible outcomes of that philosophy. This is unusual. Most waterfronts get civic infrastructure retrofitted onto them after the private buildings are already in. Weehawken planned it in reverse.
And a small thing, easy to miss. The concert series has been called "Summer Concerts on the Hudson" for so long that most residents think of it as a fixture of the park. It was actually a placeholder — a stopgap the nonprofit ran while it waited for the actual building. When the theater at 300 Port Imperial opens, the free lawn programming will still be there, but the identity of the arts organization behind it will finally have a roof.
That is the summer story worth telling your neighbors. The waterfront has always had the view. Now it is getting the room.
If you are thinking through what any of this means for your own place along Boulevard East, at Port Imperial, or further inland toward Park Avenue, Karina Ayubi works these blocks and knows how the buildings connect to the changes on the ground. Let's connect.
