On Friday, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority warned the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency that it may pull funding for the city’s Centre Pompidou X Jersey City project, unless the city figures out its financial situation.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop says the authority sent the warning because he withdrew his support for Tammy Murphy, wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, when she was running for U.S. Senate.
“The only thing that has changed is my relationship with the front office, meaning I’ve been more critical of lines, of Tammy Murphy’s candidacy and the direction of the Murphy administration. Their tone changed, as well, regarding this project directly related to my tone changing on their administration,” Fulop said.
Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, said it was clear in discussions with city officials that the state had questions about the funding plan for the museum. Jersey City officials are looking to bring a branch of the internationally known Pompidou Museum of Modern Art in Paris to the city’s Journal Square.
“As recently as December we had constructive and frank meeting in which we were really clear that we couldn’t release the funding we were responsible for until we saw a few things. One was a balance set of sources and uses, meaning, are you going to have the money to build the building you want to retrofit,” Sullivan said. “What’s the economic impact; is it going to be worth it? And also what are the revenues to keep this thing going. We made it clear that we couldn’t release that money unless we had a check of the box on all three of those things.”
