For the first time in nearly 45 years, New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ Transit) is hosting ferry service at its historic Hoboken Ferry Terminal—part of NJ Transit’s Hoboken Terminal, the largest multimodal terminal in the New York City metropolitan area.

The two-story, 29,000-square-foot ferry terminal opened in 1907 and was designed by architect Kenneth M. Murchison in the Beaux-Arts style. Constructed by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the terminal building has an ornate copper-clad façade and, in the large main waiting room, stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The terminal combines commuter rail, light rail, ferry, bus, and pedestrian facilities.

However, the ferry terminal facility fell into disrepair following the shutdown of ferry service in November 1967; it was added to the National and New Jersey registers of historic places in 1973. Its reopening for service is the culmination of a nine-year, $120 million redevelopment and rehabilitation project managed by STV Inc.

The process wasn’t an easy one: each step had to comply with the secretary of the interior’s standards on modification of historic buildings and all work required approval from the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office.

The design team provided architectural and engineering services for the rehabilitation of the Hoboken Ferry Terminal in three phases, beginning with underpinning and replacing the north wall in anticipation of renewed ferry traffic.

In Phase Two, completed in 2008, the team provided design services that restored the highly ornate copper-clad east and south exterior façades of the ferry terminal and replaced the historic clock tower, which had been removed in the 1950s because of structural deterioration.

The goal of Phase Three was to incorporate infrastructure components that would allow for ferry operation while preserving the historic character of the building. These features include gangways, barges, a steel and glass wind screen system, and ferry operations support spaces—all designed with a raw, industrial character in keeping with the tone and feeling of the historic building interior.