NEWARK -- After more than a decade of conceptualizing, negotiating, planning and design work, a new $10 million park intended to unify disparate locations in downtown Newark finally had a groundbreaking Monday.

Officials say the 3-acre Mulberry Commons park on Mulberry Street, and across from the Prudential Center arena, will provide a focal point and public gathering space for an underdeveloped section of the downtown just northwest of Newark Penn Station.

The park, designed by Sage and Coombe Architects, will include landscaped and tree-shaded lawns, walkways and seating, plantings, a pavilion and a fountain for children and families to enjoy. Supermass Studio landscape architects, Arup, Pennoni Engineers and Pentagram also worked on the project.

It is envisioned as the centerpiece of a new community of residences and businesses that will generate more than 5,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, city officials have said.

Once known as Triangle Park, the land is being developed in a public-private partnership that includes the City of Newark, the Devils NHL hockey team, Prudential Center arena, developers J&L Companies and Edison Properties, which also operates the ParkFast parking lots that occupy much of the neighborhood's still-undeveloped property.

Officials hope to build a pedestrian bridge from Penn Station to the park, a separate project estimated to cost $30 million that the park's development is not dependent on.

A groundbreaking for the park had been anticipated for at least as far back as Spring 2016. But Mayor Ras Baraka and other officials said finalizing details among the project's multiple participants had pushed back the start date, making Monday's event all the more welcome.

"Look, man, 10 years of fussing and not doing anything, I was frustrated myself," Baraka said after the event, when he and a dozen city officials and business leaders donned hard hats and shoveled a ceremonial mound of dirt. "When there are so many parties, you're always going to get that."

The ceremony was hosted by Carmelo Garcia, a former state assemblyman who had been director of real estate for the Newark Economic and Community Development Corporation. Garcia, who now serves as acting deputy mayor for economic development, said the park would be completed by Oct. 1, 2018.

The groundbreaking was attended by Devils President Hugh Weber, who told a crowd of more then 100 onlookers, "we look forward to many, many years and generations enjoying the space."

Edison Properties Chief Operating Officer Ben Feigenbaum said the park would serve as a "conduit" between Penn Station and the arena, and would spur development of the surrounding neighborhood south of Mulberry Street and west of Market, where Edison Properties is now investing $80 million to redevelop a 1907 warehouse into a business center.

One of the park's biggest proponents was Edison Properties co-founder Jerome Gottesman, a well-known developer and philanthropist, who died last month.

"For decades, courting and keeping businesses in Newark was an uphill battle due to the city's perceived shortcomings," Gottesman wrote in an op-ed published on NJ.com in April. "Today, we count ourselves amongst a growing group making huge investments based on a firm belief in Newark's future."

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.