One of New Jersey’s most prominent politicians is getting ready to leave office — and the state.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop is the city’s first three-term mayor in more than 70 years. His 12 1/2-year tenure leading New Jersey’s second-largest city ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
After opting not to seek a fourth term, he ran for governor and lost in the Democratic primary. Instead, he accepted a job offer across the Hudson River to become president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for New York City.
A spokesperson for the organization said he starts on Jan. 20. That’s the same day Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill will be sworn in as governor, an oath that Fulop had hoped to take.
An inauguration ceremony will be held Thursday in Jersey City for Mayor-elect James Solomon, who defeated former Gov. Jim McGreevey in a Dec. 2 runoff election. Solomon was one of seven candidates entered the race for mayor after Fulop announced in 2023 he would not seek re-election.
Fulop said he is moving to New York for his job with the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group for policy and economic development. It consists of around 300 companies that support nearly one million jobs and deliver approximately $236 billion in economic output, according to the group’s website.
Fulop acknowledged “mixed feelings” on not being in elected office for the first time since 2005, when he began a nine year term on the Jersey City Council.
“I’m excited about the job. I think it’s literally the best job in New York City, so I’m thankful on that, but I’ve had stability in my life for 21 years,” Fulop said Friday morning while meeting with NJ Advance Media at Jersey City Hall.
“For the most part, I knew that if I did a good job, I’d get re-elected. I made a choice not to run, so here we are,” Fulop said.
Steven Fulop thanking his supporters at Zeppelin Hall upon winning his first term as mayor of Jersey City in 2013.EJA
By many accounts, Jersey City has changed dramatically since Fulop took office in July 2013. At that time, the city still held its nonpartisan elections in the spring.
Seton Hall University associate professor of political science Matthew Hale described the perception of Jersey City as unofficially New York City’s sixth borough, particularly in wealthier sections along the waterfront.
Hale said Jersey City has evolved into more of a standalone draw rather than a backup option.
“People used to come to Jersey City because they couldn’t afford New York. That may not be the case anymore,” Hale said.
However, Jersey City’s rising prominence has raised concerns about affordability, which was a key issue in last year’s mayoral race.
Solomon said during his campaign that Jersey City’s average rent had increased 50% during the past decade and that some residents were having a hard time staying in their homes due to property tax increases.
Fulop said last week that affordability is a challenge for “the entire region.”
“Part of the reason for that is because New York City has not built over the last decade at the rate that it needs to and that’s put pressure on everybody in the surrounding areas,” Fulop said.
“If you look at rents in comparison to Hoboken or, obviously New York, you would see that we have increased at a slower rate because we’ve increased supply, and we’ve actually stabilized in the past year,” Fulop said.
When asked about his legacy, Fulop pointed to housing development, infrastructure improvements, parks and cultural initiatives. He brought up the Bayfront Redevelopment Project that broke ground in 2025 and will result in an 8,000-unit, mixed-income complex along the Hackensack River.
Jersey City’s largest city-owned park, Berry Lane Park, opened in 2016 between Garfield Avenue and Woodward Street. The City Hall annex opened in 2017 and includes departments for health, planning, zoning and landlord-tenant relations.
Fulop said the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is moving after 29 years from Newark to a new 550-seat theater in Jersey City’s downtown Powerhouse Arts District.
A $130 million renovation of the 97-year-old Loew’s Jersey Theatre is expected to finish by the fall, which plans to host more than 100 productions annually.
Fulop also cited his support for launching the annual Jersey City Marathon and Half Marathon in 2023. It drew around 7,000 runners from 15 nations last year.
“A city that’s desirable has to have arts, culture and nightlife, and while people push for everything to be local, the reality is that you need a mixture between local, national and international to really become a national and international-type model city,” Fulop said.
Mayor Steve Fulop announcing plans in 2021 to build a branch of the Centre Pompidou in Jersey City.
However, Fulop’s effort to bring a branch of the French Centre Pompidou modern art museum to Jersey City stalled in 2024, though it has not been withdrawn yet.
“I probably made a mistake in framing it as a museum, ultimately, because in hindsight, that’s really not what it is,” Fulop said.
Pompidou branches in Shanghai and Belgium serve as a “cultural institution that is a convener of prominent people, of thought-provoking discussions,” Fulop said.
He said he hopes that the project will still move forward under Solomon.
“The hope is that he approaches it with an objective set of eyes and if it is something that can work in his views — which I think it can, when he actually sees the numbers — he’ll recognize that we’re so far down the road that it will cost tens of millions of dollars to reverse what we’ve put in place already, but it’s going to be his decision,” Fulop said.
Solomon’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
The day after Fulop’s term ends, the State House Commission will hold a public hearing on a proposed storage warehouse with room for up to 500 boats at the Liberty State Park, a plan that would disrupt nearly five acres of undeveloped land.
Fulop drew an analogy to other privatization efforts that would have impacted the New Jersey-owned park and failed. He said his hope is that Sherrill “allocates money towards the interior becoming more accessible” through ongoing renovation efforts.
His new job in New York City is, in some ways, a homecoming. Fulop was working in lower Manhattan at Goldman Sachs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he saw the first hijacked plane strike the World Trade Center. He enlisted in the U.S. Marines weeks later and in 2003 was deployed to Iraq.
His salary at the Partnership for New York City has not been disclosed but the CEO he will be succeeding was being paid more than $1.5 million annually, according to the Partnership for New York City’s 2023 tax filing.
Fulop’s salary as Jersey City’s mayor was above $234,000 in 2023, boosted by longevity pay.
For his new job, Fulop posted to X that he will ”be a partner” to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who like Solomon emphasized affordability in his campaign.
Mamdani recently said Jersey City’s surge in housing development under Fulop should serve as a model for New York City.
Fulop’s Battery Park Plaza office will be directly across from Jersey City. In his last days in office, he offered a fond look back at the city where he rose to prominence and is about to depart.
“The personality here is very unique, being that it has been the gateway to America for decades upon decades because of Ellis Island. You’d be hard-pressed not to find somebody anywhere in the county that doesn’t have ties to Jersey City,” Fulop said.