"We're grateful for everyone's patience as we undertake the biggest makeover Midland Avenue has seen in decades," Mayor Carol Jean Doyle said in The Observer's September report on the project. She was talking about the Midland Avenue Streetscape Project. It covers Midland between Kearny Avenue and Davis Avenue and wraps onto Elm Street, Forest Street and Garofalo Place so that Arlington Depot Park becomes part of the corridor.
When the work is done, the town will designate the street the Midland Avenue Arts District. Midland was once a place people came to in the evening for theater, and the new lighting, sidewalks, banner poles and park connection are designed to make that possible again. Until the crews finish, the street will keep running on the shops and kitchens that are open there today. The town's construction rules are written to keep those businesses reachable.
A theater on the second floor of a former courthouse
The Halfpenny Playhouse opened at 155 Midland Ave. in 1965. It took over the second floor of a building that had once been a Hudson County courthouse. Kearny Life's history of the playhouse says the company started two years earlier as the Producing Actors Company at the Theatre Shack in North Arlington and quickly outgrew that 74-seat space. Its first Midland Avenue production was "Gaslight," which opened July 9, 1965. After that the theater put on plays and musicals several nights a week, with children's theater on weekends and an acting school.
The stage was small, but it launched careers. Kearny Life reports that Nathan Lane and Ken Jennings, who both grew up in Jersey City, got their first theater jobs at the Halfpenny. In a Broadway podcast interview cited by the same outlet, Lane described a stage "the size of a coffee table." The company also commissioned original musicals about New Jersey history. "JERZ" and "JERZ II" toured the state.
The run ended because of rent and overhead. Kearny Life reports that the company began performing elsewhere in 1973, became theater-in-residence at Upsala College in East Orange, and closed in 1983. The Kearny Museum keeps a glass-front bookcase inscribed in memory of founders Jack Johnston and Charles Robinson. The town's own project materials spell the name "Half Penny."
The theater was one of several civic anchors on the avenue. The Freeman Building dates to 1890. In an Observer "Then & Now" feature, it is described as the former Arlington Post Office, where James Freeman served as postmaster and ran a grocery store. Later it had commercial tenants and a theater upstairs. When Strong Towns West Hudson held its first Historic Walking & Food Tour of Midland Avenue on March 29, 2025, together with the Kearny Museum and the Kearny Urban Enterprise Zone, the stops included the Post Office, the Freeman Building, the former Arlington Depot Station and local eateries, according to The Observer.
What the $2.86 million is built to do
The town's project page puts the State Urban Enterprise Zone grant at $2.86 million. The Observer reported it as $2.8 million and listed what it pays for: new street lighting, landscaping, trees and rain gardens, sidewalks, bike racks, benches and banner poles. New curb ramps, sidewalks and crosswalks will meet current NJDOT and ADA standards.
The town's FAQ connects those items to evening and cultural use of the street.
"...wider, accessible sidewalks and improved lighting make outdoor performances, sidewalk exhibitions and evening events possible in a way they aren't today, the cross-street banner poles give us a permanent way to promote cultural programming along the corridor, and Arlington Depot Park becomes a natural gathering and event space."
The same page says plainly that Midland "has always been a working commercial street, and it should stay one." It also names the businesses it hopes better lighting, seating, trees and the park will help: "restaurants, shops, galleries and the like." Kearny UEZ Coordinator Linda Kraus D'Isa told The Observer the goal is more foot traffic so local businesses can grow.
That is how the arts designation connects to the paving work. A sidewalk can only hold an exhibition if it is wide enough, and an evening event needs enough light. The park at the end of the corridor becomes the gathering space the Halfpenny's upstairs stage used to be.
The order the work arrives in
The town expects construction to run from October 2026 through June 2027. The Observer and the project page describe the work in two phases. Utility and streetscape work happen first with the road open, and repaving follows once the utility upgrades are done. PSE&G is handling the gas and electrical upgrades and the repaving.
| Phase | Work | What it means on the street |
|---|---|---|
| Utility and streetscape | Lead water line replacement, PSE&G gas and electrical upgrades, and streetscape work | Road stays open; lane shifts, temporary parking limits and sidewalk detours in the active block |
| Repaving | Roadway repaved and restriped with new thermoplastic traffic and pedestrian markings | Daytime closures with posted detours; streets reopen outside work hours |
During utility and streetscape work, Midland stays open to traffic. Crews work block by block, so only the active zone has short lane shifts, temporary parking restrictions and sidewalk detours. Parking restrictions are posted in advance. Repaving is the one stage with full daytime road closures, and the town says it will post those dates and detour routes on the project page and email them to subscribers before they happen.
Two details shape a normal week on the avenue:
- Work hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Weekday evenings and full weekends fall outside the municipal construction window.
- Pedestrian access to every business and residence is guaranteed at all times, including during repaving closures. Where sidewalk work is underway, there will be temporary walkways and signed crossings, and the contractor will work directly with businesses on deliveries.
Block-by-block phase dates go up on the project page and out to the email list, which anyone can join at kearnynj.org/midlandavenue. The Observer reported that this is the first project of this size where Kearny has offered direct email updates on schedule changes, road impacts and milestones.
Two storefronts that carry the street until June
The Arts District will take a few years to fill in. In the meantime, two businesses on the same stretch of Midland, with recent local coverage, show what daily life on the avenue looks like now.
Belweder Deli, 154 Midland Ave. Owner Mariola Swietkowski opened the deli in 2008 to serve homemade Polish food at affordable prices, according to a September 2026 Kearny Life profile. The counter has handmade pierogi, stuffed cabbage, freshly smoked kielbasa, potato pancakes and imported Polish groceries. The house favorites named in the profile are pickle soup, Hungarian goulash and red borscht. Asked why she keeps doing the work after all these years, Swietkowski told Kearny Life, "The people."
Curiosity by Nest, 161 Midland Ave. Jessica Barahona opened on Midland in 2020 under the name Asian Fusion and later renamed it, Kearny Life reported in November 2025. She describes the space as a place where children come for ice cream and desserts and stay for the lounge, the play areas in back, board games and art projects. The outlet says teens come after school, parents meet up there and remote workers bring laptops. The walls hold paintings, drawings and poetry by Kearny children, and there is a Japanese mural by the artist martian.art. In February 2026, Kearny Life covered a children's brunch series held at the same address.
Curiosity by Nest sits a few doors from 155 Midland, where the Halfpenny had its upstairs stage. A storefront with children's art on the walls and a mural in the room already does much of what the town's FAQ says the Arts District is meant to support, and it does it within sight of where the original theater stood.
Where the street goes from here
Kearny UEZ's 2026 calendar marks Small Business Saturday on November 28. Since that is a weekend, the avenue is outside the weekday construction window that day. Further out, the June 2027 target is when the town expects the lighting, benches, banner poles and the connection to Arlington Depot Park to be in place.
At The Sutherlin Group, we follow how projects like the Midland Avenue streetscape change the blocks around them as they move from construction to finished street. If you live near Midland or Arlington Depot Park and want to understand how the Arts District plans could shape your corner of Kearny, we're happy to talk it through.