Northern New Jersey Development News

[Uaarkson]

Nice! Well, nice for the skyline anyway. Is the project financed and ready to go?

[nyc_alex]

Originally Posted by Uaarkson

Nice! Well, nice for the skyline anyway. Is the project financed and ready to go?

Not sure, I just happened to come across that article. I know the area has been an empty dirt lot for a bit, so I'd like to think this was just waiting for approval to start.

[desertpunk]

Cool! Would be the tallest towers in Ft Lee, no?


LOL at NIMBYS:

Another resident, Nina Levinson, said she worried that building such tall structures would make Fort Lee a “target,” alluding to terrorist attacks.

[Nexis]

Horrible location.....no rail to absorb the growth...

[nyc_alex]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

Cool! Would be the tallest towers in Ft Lee, no?


LOL at NIMBYS:

Yeah it would, and it is up on a cliff so it will stand out on the river. As you know I'm sure, it will have no impact on NYC's skyline since it is too far away.

I found that quote hilarious too. I don't think she has to worry. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 200 more likely "targets" than that just in the NYC metro.

[desertpunk]

LeFrak Awaits Tennant For Latest Jersey City Office Tower

The LeFrak Organization is all set to break ground on the latest new construction for its 25-years-in-the-making, $10 billion Newport development in Jersey City. According to the New York Times, all it needs is an office tenant. LeFrak has already erected 14 apartment buildings, seven office buildings and a shopping mall to Newport, but has recently slowed its development pace. The last office building went up in 2003.

It wants to start work on Pier 6, where it could add up to 1.25 million square feet of office space. The first building may rise to 17 stories, but its size would ultimately depend on what kind of tenant agrees to take space. A tenant would have to commit to at least 300,000 square feet to make the project feasible.

“We wouldn’t have stayed in business for 100 years if we were doing wild speculation,” said Jamie LeFrak, a principal of the company.

The complex is expected to cost $100 million to $300 million, and the rents will be far below Manhattan’s. The Hudson waterfront in New Jersey typically commands rent of about $38 per square foot for Class A space, but state tax credit programs could reduce the effective rents to about $20 per foot, the Times said.

As several financial firms, including Citigroup, Fidelity Investments and Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, have made commitments to New Jersey from Manhattan of late, LeFrak expects a similar tenant to be the impetus for the Pier 6 groundbreaking.

[desertpunk]

Massive Mall Project Nears Approval


firstracksonline

New Jersey’s American Dream, formerly known as Xanadu, has taken a big step forward just two weeks after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reiterated its opposition to the project. According to the Wall Street Journal, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns the project’s land, submitted the environmental review document the EPA was requesting, clearing the way for permits needed to resume construction.

[desertpunk]

NY Times

Jersey City Development, Begun in ’86, Enters Final Phase

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: April 30, 2012


A park in Newport that will open soon.

In 1981, the developer Richard S. LeFrak got a call from his father, who was exploring a broad swath of land in Jersey City. “You’d better come over and look at this,” Samuel J. LeFrak told his son.

It was a rusting railroad yard and some sagging warehouses on the decaying west bank of the Hudson River. The LeFraks started building there in 1986.

Now, Richard LeFrak and his sons — his father died in 2003 at 85 — are embarking on the last phase of what has become known as Newport, a 600-acre neighborhood that already has 8 office buildings, 13 apartment towers, 2 hotels, a marina, schools, a retail mall and parks.

To put Newport in perspective, it has six times as much land as Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan does, and dwarfs the 26-acre development planned for the rail yards on the West Side of Manhattan. Over the past quarter-century, the LeFraks and their partners have invested billions of dollars in Newport. It is not easy to imagine a single real estate family ever building anything so ambitious again in the United States.

“Newport is truly extraordinary,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. “It’s getting harder and harder to do something this big. But this is the right kind of dense, transit-oriented development.”

On Thursday, the LeFraks and Gov. Chris Christie are to formally open a gently sloping 4.5-acre park at the north end of Newport, near Hoboken Terminal. The first of what will be seven more apartment towers surrounding the park is rising quickly. And there are plans for one or two more office buildings on a pier about a mile away, at the south end of Newport.

“I originally thought it would take 20 years, not 35 or 40,” Mr. LeFrak, 66, said. “It’s changed so dramatically since we started. At this point, the project is successful. What you’re really doing now is ensuring that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

With Jersey City only one mile from Lower Manhattan, the Newport development, as well as other office towers on the waterfront, have often been viewed by New York officials as a threat to New York’s hold on the financial services industry. Lured by lower real estate costs and tax breaks, JPMorgan Chase, UBS, Cigna and other companies moved parts of their operations to Jersey City.

But it has also become apparent that New York retains its allure, at least for high-powered executives. In 2004, traders at Goldman Sachs revolted against plans to move them to the company’s new $1.3 billion tower in Jersey City. Still, New Jersey continues to offer generous tax incentives to companies willing to cross the Hudson.

For many years, Newport was a series of isolated residential and commercial towers looming over a lot of vacant land. The buildings were unremarkable, and the apartments filled with tenants looking for a cheaper alternative to Manhattan, or a way station before heading to the suburbs.

Today, residents and visitors dodge baby carriages along Newport’s pathways, and at the large playground that is part of the newly built park, which includes a playing field and a sandy beach. In recent years, the LeFraks say they have focused on better architecture and filling in gaps between buildings with schools and shops.

“It was a real estate investment, and now it’s a neighborhood,” said Mr. LeFrak’s son, Harrison, who has worked at the family business since 1997.

[...]

[desertpunk]

REW

Look At Us Now



Last Thursday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and developer Richard LeFrak attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for Newport Green, a new playground and park at LeFrak’s master-planned community along the Jersey City waterfront.

The park’s completion marks the start of a new phase of development in Newport, following a period of slowed activity during the recession. “Every time I talk to Richard, he’s talking about the next thing,” Governor Christie said at the ceremony, during which students from a local pre-school and elementary school were welcomed onto Newport Green’s jungle gym and carousel.


Governor Chris Christie and Richard LeFrak at the opening of Newport Green


Indeed, the nearly five-acre park, which boasts the first urban beach in New Jersey, a recreational field, an outdoor ping pong table, and several landscaped gardens, is the latest of a string of ambitious plans for the 400-acre community that’s a short PATH ride away from lower Manhattan.

LeFrak is seeking a tenant for office space he hopes to build on Pier 6, a former slaughterhouse that now houses construction equipment. And a new residential high-rise is under construction on Washington Boulevard, across the street from Newport Green. Once the tower is complete, the LeFrak family plans to build six more. “This solidifies Newport’s reputation as the most extraordinary place along the Hudson River,” LeFrak said of the spate of new development in recent months.

Twenty-five years ago, the neighborhood and all its attractions — including a mall, ice skating rink, waterfront esplanade, several schools, and 13 glass-curtain wall residential towers, many overlooking the Manhattan skyline and New York harbor — were the site of abandoned rail yards, rotting wharfs, and industrial lots, some of which had to undergo environmental remediation. “This was known as the worst section of Jersey City,” the city’s mayor, Jerremiah Healey, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Once the LeFrak family and their partner, the mall developer Melvin Simon, began to clean up Newport with support from the public sector, the rest of the city saw a trickle-down effect.

Historic downtown Jersey City, with its popular Grove Street and Hamilton Park neighborhoods, and parts of Journal Square underwent a renaissance over the last few decades, with a plethora of luxury developments, including Trump Plaza Residences, rising and new shops and restaurants opening up.

Even the city’s far western border, along the Hackensack River, and its southern border with Bayonne have seen improvements, Mayor Healy said. Not long ago, an esplanade was built connecting Jersey City with Hoboken.
“They were the snowball that started rolling down the hill,” the mayor said of the LeFrak family and their vision to jump-start redevelopment in the decaying, post-industrial city. “The renaissance in Jersey City started right here.”

Governor Christie sees Newport, with its 15,000 residents, 20,000 office workers, 14 acres of green space, and access to the PATH train and light rail, as a model for urban redevelopment across the state. “We continue to make all the urban areas of New Jersey revitalized,” he said. “This shows what can be done when visionary members of the private sector partner with the public sector.”

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[Jericho-79]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

Massive Mall Project Nears Approval


firstracksonline

They'd better complete this thing before the Super Bowl. LOL

[Nexis]

Originally Posted by Jericho-79

They'd better complete this thing before the Super Bowl. LOL

It shouldn't be allowed , its in an area where the road network is already overloaded...

[desertpunk]

TRD

Massive Jersey City redevelopment plan takes first step forward



Jersey City has taken a crucial step towards the redevelopment of 100 acres of contaminated land on its western edge, according to the Wall Street Journal. NJ Transit began an environmental review of the plan last week, a precursor to extending the Light Rail to connect the region’s public transit to the area, known as Bayfront. An estimated $213 million extension of the Light Rail could help encourage developers to move forward with a plan to build 8,100 residential units, 1 million square feet of office space and 20 acres of park on the waterfront site.

The land is owned by technology and manufacturing company Honeywell International, which took it over after a merger in the late 1990s. But its contamination goes back to the late 1800s, when the area was filled by chromium waste from nearby plant owner Mutual Chemical Company, which made shipbuilding substances.

A retail complex opened on the site after the plant closed in 1954, but by the 1980s the stores’ walls began to crumble from the waste. The buildings were vacated and the land has been abandoned ever since.

In 2005, Jersey City sued Honeywell to recoup lost tax revenue and to get it to clean up the site, but settled upon developing the land together instead. Now they’re working together to prepare the site to sell to a developer to bring the plan to fruition. Construction wouldn’t start until at least 2016, and the project likely wouldn’t be complete for another 25 years.

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Bayfront Jersey City


http://www.bayfrontjerseycity.com/

This is really going to be nice!

[Nexis]

Some pictures of the Cast Iron lofts...

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DSCN4930 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN4931 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN4932 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Auqa

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DSCN4938 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN4939 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

[Nexis]

My Newark pictures from Friday...

Dinner @ Better Bites...Yummy

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DSCN5170 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5172 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5171 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

There seem to be alot of Eagles in Newark...

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DSCN5176 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Nice Indian designs...

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DSCN5177 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

General pix

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DSCN5180 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5182 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Panasonic is rising fast...

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DSCN5184 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5187 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Newark Penn Station

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DSCN5189 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5190 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

More people need to drive into Newark

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DSCN5192 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5193 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Devils ...Devils...Devils...

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DSCN5196 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5197 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5201 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Whats happening with those abandoned buildings?

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DSCN5202 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Indigo Hotel Restoration seems to be going slow?

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DSCN5204 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5205 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Marriott Hotel nearing Completed...

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DSCN5206 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5207 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Police out in Force

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DSCN5212 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Richardson lofts...

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DSCN5214 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5215 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5216 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5217 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5222 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Newark Penn Approach...

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DSCN5218 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5219 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5226 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

$1 Billion Ft Lee Plans Unveiled


The Hudson Lights at Ft Lee

[Uaarkson]

Can't say how many times I've had to drive around that shit trying to get back on to the GW. At least it'll look nice, now!

[desertpunk]

Gwathmey Siegel Revises Costas Kondylis Design For Jersey City Megadevelopment

Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates has unveiled a new design for a planned 1.2 million-square-foot development project in downtown Jersey City (see rendering to the right). The firm was recently selected by Ironstate Development and partner Panepinto Properties to replace Costas Kondylis as the architect of two 50-story residential and hotel towers planned for 70 and 90 Columbus Street in Jersey City.

Ironstate chose GSKA after it successfully designed the firm’s development of a W hotel in Hoboken, according to James Ronga, vice president of development for Ironstate. Gene Kaufman, a principal at GSKA, told The Real Deal in a statement that his firm is working with the same footprint and square footage, but will make “qualitative modifications that result in a project with a distinct geometry and a plan that better integrates the site into the Jersey City community.”

[Nexis]

Jersey City Construction update

Cast Iron Lofts...

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DSCN5684 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5683 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5682 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5681 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Laguna

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DSCN5675 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5673 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Marbella II

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DSCN5633 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

Powerhouse

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DSCN5630 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5625 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5619 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

18Park

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DSCN5589 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

The Maddox

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DSCN5584 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5580 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

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DSCN5578 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

Luxury Jersey City Development Breaks Ground


18 park

A new Jersey City, N.J. mixed-use development — 18 Park — broke ground today with Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy in attendance, a statement from the developers said. The 422-unit luxury rental building will sit atop a new state-of-the-art facility for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County and is being developed by Ironstate Development and Kushner Real Estate Group.

[desertpunk]

TRD

DreamWorks on board for theme park at Meadowlands mall



From left: DreamWorks CEo Jeffrey Katzenberg and the American Dream development

In the latest sign of renewed interest in the site, DreamWorks Animation, of “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” fame, has reached a deal with developer Triple Five to open a 14.7-acre amusement park at the American Dream Meadowlands mall in New Jersey, the New York Times reported. This will be the studio’s first amusement park based on its movies following the falling out of plans to bring parks to China, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the Times that the park will feature DreamWorks characters, technology and storytelling “in a unique and innovative family entertainment experience.” There will be rides, attractions and a wave pool that incorporate DreamWorks movie characters.

As The Real Deal reported, the Meadowlands project — previously called Xanadu — was foreclosed upon. Last year, Triple Five, who owns the Mall of America, committed to restart the stalled project.

As reported in late June, the New York Jets and Giants National Football League teams filed a lawsuit to block the delayed American Dream project over an alleged violation of a prior agreement for the two teams, who play at the nearby MetLife Stadium, that gives them approval rights for any plans to expand the shopping center.

[...]