Building demolition began in February for the redevelopment

Building demolition began in February for the redevelopment of a World War II Airplane factory in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, into a mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhood. Wesmont Station, planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, includes 737 residential units, 130,000 square feet of commercial space, a school, a train station, and a public plaza with a statue of “Rosie the Riveter,” a symbol of the women who did wartime factory work, according to the March 12 New York Times. Six thousand women worked at the site during its wartime heyday. The entire site is 144 acres, but the development will cover only 70 of those acres. “The two-million-square-foot former factory building that dominates the site will remain as a new neighborhood rises on the sprawling slope above it,” the Times reports. “We’ve got a highly complex, exquisitely detailed plan,” Raphael Zucker, president of Lakewood-based developer Somerset Development, told the Times, explaining that construction of the first mixed-use buildings would begin within a few months. The old factory, where the Curtiss-Wright Corporation manufactured engines for B-29 bombers, takes up 32 acres under one roof, according to The New York Times. Heavy manufacturing ceased there more than 20 years ago, but Somerset Development has managed to fully lease the space for warehouse and office use.