[macmini]

Here are some Projects that are Underconstruction, Approved,Proposed and beinng Renovated in Jersey City.

Grove Pointe - 29 stories
100 Newark Ave
started: May 5, 2005
finished: 2007
67 condominiums and 458 rental apartments
535 parking spots, rooftop pool and deck
Under Construction

http://www.jcedc.org/new/grovepointe.jpg

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A Condominiums By The Athena Group -32 stories
Washington Blvd & First Street
started: 2005
finished: 2006
250-unit & 253 parking spaces
13,500 quare feet of retail
Under Construction

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1444.jpg

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Washington Commons - 12 stories
Christopher Columbus Drive & Washington Street
started:2005
finished: n/a
77-unit building with 46 parking spaces
Under Construction

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1445.jpg

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Shore Club Condominiums at Newport - 28 stories
www.shoreclubatnewport.com
54 River Drive
started:2005
finished:2007
214 Condo's
outdoor rooftop sundeck
Under Construction

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Columbus Plaza - 38 stories
303 Warren Street
started: Construction Starts Fall 2005
finished: n/a
210-unit apartment
420k sq/ft office building
750-car parking garage
115k sq/ft of retail space

http://www.appliedco.com/images/featureColumbus.jpg

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700 Grove
700 Grove Street
www.700grove.com
Developer: Toll Brothers
Condo's
started: 2005
finished: n/a

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Montgomery Greene Condominiums -19 stories
corner of Montgomery and Greene streets
www.montgomery-greene.com
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=190406
started: n/a
finished: fall 2005
113-unit building
over 3,700 square feet of retail space
123-space parking garage
Under Construction

http://www.lwdm-architects.com/Images/imgnewpg/Exteriormont.jpg

http://www.lwdm-architects.com/Images/imgnewpg/Entrymont.jpg
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Waldo Lofts - 12 stories
159 2nd Street
www.waldolofts.com
started:n/a
finished:2005

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I have some more that I will be adding soon. All of these projects are either under construcion or will be starting this year

[macmini]

The Liberty National Golf Course has been under construction since last year. It will be the best golf course in the area and will be for PGA as well. It well be situated right next to Liberty State Park. This 18 hole championship caliber golf course, designed by Tom Kite and Bob Cupp, will have a 12-minute launch service to/from Manhattan to the Club, with an onboard concierge. Liberty National will have extensive golf practice facilities including double-ended grass tee practice range, putting and chipping greens, and indoor/outdoor teaching studio. The clubhouse will offer: a grille/lounge; banquet facilities; private meeting rooms; men's and women's locker room facilities; golf shop; spa and more.

Here are some pics taken May 2005

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1436.jpg

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1438.jpg

[Gulcrapek]

edit: oops, never mind

[macmini]

Here are some of the buildings that have been Approved.


Residences at Liberty
project consists of three residential towers
Height: 50,43, and 35 stories
Willowbend Development Corporation

http://www.lera.com/pimg/residencesliberty/1433679_large.jpg

http://www.lera.com/pimg/residencesliberty/9928431_large.jpg

http://www.lera.com/pimg/residencesliberty/7881128_large.jpg

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The View I, II, III
Height: 30, 18, and 14 stories - 161 units
underground parking with 1,197 spaces
Architect: Dean Marchetto and Associates
Developer Lance Lucarelli
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/cx/?id=110703

http://images.zwire.com/local/Z/ZWIRE1291/zwire/images/04planning10b681.jpg

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[PA Pride]

Jersey City is the new Manhattan. I really like the Residences at Liberty. Badass.

[R@ptor]

Looks like there will be a really nice skyline on the western shore of the Hudson River in a couple of years.

The Residences at Liberty are great, but it looks like they're far outside of the main skyline cluster of Jersey City.

Any news about Harborside Plaza 7, Harborspire 1&2 and 99 Hudson Street?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Wow, great idea for a thread!

[FlyersFan118]

wasn't there some 900+footer proposed for Jersey City some time back? Is that dead now?


Nice stuff going on in Jersey City!

[Lecom]

I like the first one.

The development is nice but sadly the boom of the early '00s is over.

[shadowbat]

Anyone know what's going on with the J.C medical center?? When will they start renovations?

[billyblancoNYCII]

Jersey City is the new Manhattan. I really like the Residences at Liberty. Badass.

Um, bite your tongue. You offend.

[macmini]

The J.C medical center first phase of construction is set to start in September and will consist of two buildings containing 314 units, commercial and retail space, and a 1,200-car parking facility.

When complete the $350 million project - will include 2,243 market-rate condominium units, screening rooms, a pool, roof-top restaurants, and 65,000 square feet of retail


http://image07.webshots.com/7/2/29/57/90722957yMlJNw_ph.jpg

http://image07.webshots.com/7/7/39/88/85873988sBytfm_ph.jpg

http://image08.webshots.com/8/8/64/17/156086417SZgkQW_ph.jpg

[macmini]

Developer Peter Mocco has launched construction of the first phase of Liberty Harbor North. In all, phase one will include 416 condominium units, 17 units of commercial retail space and 460 parking spaces. According to Jef Zak one of the Developers they expect to have occupancy in the residential properties by Spring '06.


Their website (www.libertyharbor.com) doesn't say much, but they have started construction along Grand Street.

In all, the development will transform 80 acres of vacant waterfront land in Jersey City into a community of 6,500 units of market-rate housing, one million square feet of hotel space, 750,000 square feet of retail space and 4.5 million square feet of office space.


http://www.metrohomesllc.com/images/liberty_harbor.jpg

[robhut]

Go jersey city.
Lots of new developments.

[Mr.Met]

I like the first one.

The development is nice but sadly the boom of the early '00s is over.

Is that when most of the tall buildings went up? I live so close to yet I know so little about Jersey City. I was impressed by its skyline when I was in Manhatten a couple a weeks ago. I had no idea it was that built up.

Obviously there is nothing that compares to Manhatten :D

[macmini]

Championship-Caliber Golf Course Takes Shape Near NYC


http://www.cegltd.com/Editorial_Pics/Liberty-9-LG.jpg


It’s hard to imagine that anyone could look at a former toxic dump in New Jersey and envision a championship golf course in its place. But that’s just what happened approximately 10 years ago when Tom Kite and famed golf course designer Bob Cupp laid their eyes on approximately 150 acres in Jersey City, overlooking the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline.

Applied Development Company, in partnership with Willowbend Development Company, is creating a one-of-a-kind golf course on the western shore of the New York Bay. This $130 million 18-hole championship caliber golf course, designed by Kite and Cupp, will have a 12-minute launch service to and from Manhattan, with an onboard concierge.

Liberty National Golf Course will have extensive golf practice facilities including double-ended grass tee practice range, putting and chipping greens, and an indoor/outdoor teaching studio. The clubhouse will offer a grille/lounge, banquet facilities, private meeting rooms, men’s and women’s locker room facilities, a golf shop and a spa.

All this on a site that once was home to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co., and later the location of an ammunition and fuel depot during World Wars I and II, and finally a debris-sifting site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Russell M. Bayliss, director of membership selection committee of Liberty National Golf Course, said, “It’s going to be one of the best golf courses you’ll ever play on. We’ve had the president of PGA America here a lot, and we’ve worked closely with him just to get feedback on what it will take to hold a tournament here … the design elements they’d like to see in a golf course, and so on.”

Armored Inc., of Jersey City, NJ, is the primary contractor for the 150-acre, 7,500-yd. course.

“The entire project has been going on for 10 years,” began George Coyne Jr., president of Armored. “Three years of the project involved just taking out the structures that were here. Then the past seven years have involved both soil remediation and constructing the course. It’s quite a project,” which, he added, is scheduled for completion July 4, 2006.

Because of the site’s history, contaminants, such as chromium, were pervasive in the soil, according to Coyne Jr.

“We imported about a million yards of soil and 800,000 tons of sand to create the cap for the contaminated soil and for the contours for the golf course,” he said. “First, we had to take the structures down, the oil storage tanks, etc., and do the excavation. We took the contaminated soil and sent it to Carteret and BioCycle who treated it by spraying the soil with a biological agent that eats hydrocarbons and excretes nitrogen. As a result, we got nitrogen-enriched soil that we put back into the golf course; we used approximately a half-million yards of this soil. Then we placed it above the liner and shaped and contoured it; some of these fills are 17 feet.”

The final grade on the course will be done by another company — the golf course architects. “They sculpt the last of it to a tenth of an inch,” said Coyne Jr.

Currently, most of the remediation work is completed, except the location where the clubhouse and marina will be, the closest point on the site to the Statue of Liberty.

Armored also is doing all the infrastructure work, such as sewer and water, which includes three irrigation ponds built by Armored. “These [ponds] will be the source for the entire golf course,” said Coyne Jr. “Some of these lakes are nine feet deep; we had to dewater them, line them and then capture the natural ground water from the New Jersey Turnpike through a series of culverts. The main source of water for this course will be rainwater.”

Over the past several years, Armored has had an average of 40 workers and 15 machines on site for the project, with Volvo iron making up the lion’s share of his fleet.

Volvos, according to Coyne Jr., save him a lot of money on a project of this scale.

“In today’s market, a big thing is the fuel economy of the Volvos,” said Coyne Jr. “They’re very fuel-efficient. I pay the bills and I’m very conscious of what everything costs me, and they’re [Volvos] the pick of the litter. Plus, the service is great from LB Smith and Todd Ewing, my territory manager. If something breaks, they come to fix it right away. They’re always just a phone call away.”

Adjacent to Liberty National Golf Course is condominium development called Port Liberte. These one- and two-bedroom homes range in size from 766 to 1,510 sq. ft. of living space and are located in four-story, mid-rise buildings with European-inspired architecture and indoor parking. Some are finished and more are currently being built. In all there will be 2,400 units.

In the northeast corner, near where Liberty National’s clubhouse will be, a project soon will get under way to construct the Residences at Liberty. This $224-million project will consist of three residential towers (approximately 52 stories tall), retail space, golf club house, parking and swimming pool.

For his part of the project — the golf course — Coyne Jr. is reflective over how much work has been done and how much the area has changed.

“This place used to be an eyesore. For the longest time, all you’d be able to see from the turnpike is an abandoned oil storage facility … now you see trees and that’s much better.”

[tone99loc]

thanks for the update macmini - i am so psyched about JC's future...I think this golf course will be real popular...

[macmini]

A Course With a View Is Built on Major Hopes

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/08/08/sports/08course.xlg.jpg

By DAMON HACK
Published: August 8, 2005

A thousand yards from the Statue of Liberty and steps from the Hudson River is a strip of land that once lay dying on the shores of Jersey City. Petroleum and waste snaked through its underbelly, rendering the land an eyesore.

"Awful," the professional golfer Tom Kite said recently, seated where ruin and decay once reigned. "It was a terrible piece of property. Flat as a table, ugly, abused and mistreated. But what it had was location, location, location."From that cavity, the lush and very private Liberty National Golf Club has sprouted across from the Manhattan skyline. This $150 million project by Paul B. Fireman, the property's owner and the chief executive of Reebok; his son Dan; and the golf-design tandem of Kite and Bob Cupp is creating a buzz less than a year before the first players tee off.

The club is set to open July 4, 2006, with a founding membership that includes the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and the New England Patriots' owner, Robert K. Kraft. And already the course is anticipated to be a one-of-a-kind experience that may one day challenge courses like Shinnecock Hills on Long Island and Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., site of this week's P.G.A. Championship, as a host for golf's most prestigious tournaments.

Built on 160 acres and covering 4,000 feet of waterfront, the course stretches 7,400 yards from the back tees, with small rivers running through it and a $1 million cart path built with Belgian stones.

The clubhouse will feature a menu from the restaurateur Tom Colicchio of Gramercy Tavern and Craft. The course will offer a 15-minute luxury yacht service from Manhattan and, for those with quicker needs, a helipad.

Each member will have a custom-made set of clubs that will always be available at the course, a kind of thank-you gift for joining a club with an initiation fee of around $500,000.

But what separates it, members say, is the view from the ground, a vista that no parkland course or ocean links can claim.

"There is nothing more dramatic than lower New York Harbor, the Empire State Building and the shape of the Verrazano Bridge," said the founding member Kenneth G. Langone, the chief executive of the securities firm Invemed Associates and former director of the New York Stock Exchange. "Can you imagine having that view as the last shot you see on the last hole of a major tournament?"

Kite, when asked if he felt the course could stand up to the demands of a major championship, said Liberty National qualified on several fronts.

"It has plenty of teeth," he said. "It's all you want. It also lends itself to do great things on it, like the blimp shots you see at a major championship, the pan-in, pan-out shots at Pebble Beach."

But Kite, the 1992 United States Open champion and former Ryder Cup captain, said it could take time.

"There is no way you can shortcut history," he said. "You have to build it. Obviously, we feel we can make it happen."

The New York area has been awarded several major golf events in recent years, including the 2002 United States Open at Bethpage Black, the 2004 United States Open at Shinnecock Hills and this year's P.G.A. Championship at Baltusrol. Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., will play host to the United States Open in 2006, and Bethpage Black will welcome it again in 2009.

The competition is fierce for these events, as it is for the international Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup competitions.

The United States Golf Association, for example, which has its United States Open sites scheduled through 2012, receives invitations from courses from around the country. The association chooses several to examine and considers space for grandstands, concessions and merchandise tents, as well as a city's hotel space, parking and security.

The Presidents Cup, which will be contested in September at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Lake Manassas, Va., evaluates similar factors as well as others, including the weather, the amount of daylight, the roads and the city's infrastructure, said George Burger, the general chairman of the Presidents Cup.

"It's very similar to getting a political convention in your city, or a Super Bowl, and it's a distant cousin to an Olympic bid," he said.

But the golf course itself is crucial. And while Liberty National has yet to open, it has built-in qualities that may already make it a contender for golf's marquee events, Burger said.

"It's the credibility of the architects, the credibility of the membership and the credibility of the site itself," Burger said. "When you get that good of a design, a great property and good members, those are the new courses that will be contenders for majors. The only thing it lacks is history. But given the site, that may be something that will get it over the hump."

Billy Getty, a founding member who has started his own company specializing in golf course development, said of Liberty National: "There are only so many golf courses that if you walk to the middle of it blindfolded you'd immediately know where you are. Being able to use the Statue of Liberty as alignment is incredible, but also, since 9/11, things resonate emotionally more than they did. I don't think anyone will escape the butterflies in their belly seeing the Statue of Liberty and the replacement for the towers being erected."

Fireman, who opened the private course Willowbend on Cape Cod in 1993, has been involved in the Liberty National project for more than five years, from the property's filthiest state to its shiniest.

"We cleaned it up spotless, and it required a lot of money," Fireman said. "I'm sure everybody who builds a golf course and spends a lot of money thinks something special will happen to it. I'm looking to have a good experience for the membership and the people that visit. With New York City, you can't get a more dramatic picture. I think history will find its way."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[macmini]

Update on Montgomery - Greene


Two variances were approved for the Montgomery - Greene Condo's.

# Height variance. The district permits a maximum of a 110-foot building. M-G will be 210 feet tall.
# Density variance. The district permits a maximum of 150 units per acre. M-G building will have almost 3x that level of densit

The Greene Street façade only goes six stories high. The building will also include retail space, fireplaces, parking, and any all the luxury features you would expect from a high-end building.

The residence tower sits above a 97-space, valet parking garage and ground floor retail area (seemingly 3 stores; total 4,500 sq. ft

The unit breakdown is:

* 5 studio/lofts
* 84 1-BR
* 24 2-BR

Height: 210 Feet
started: n/a
finished: 2006
113-unit building
4,500 square feet of retail space
123-space parking garage
Under Construction


http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1654.JPG

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1659.jpg

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/DSCN1657.JPG

[macmini]

MORGAN POINT

Approved

The building will be a 10-story, 78-unit structure with 31 parking spaces and 4,162 square feet of retail. Some units will have private terraces (9th floor only), while others will share the two common decks located on the 6th floor and the roof. The unit breakdown is as follows:

* 19 - 1BR (900 sq ft)
* 46 - 2BR (1,200 – 1,270)
* 5 - 3BR (1,365 – 1,800)
* 7 - 2BR / 3BR Duplexes (1,400 – 1,750)

The building will straddle Marin Blvd, Morgan Street, and Steuben Street right across from the new Grove PATH station entrance.

Although prices have not been officially established, if the current rates stand up, units could range from $450k - $900k.

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/MorganPointe_OverallPix_web.jpg

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/MorganPointe%20-%20Steuben%20St_web.jpg

[macmini]

The Liberty National Golf Course now has a website http://www.libertynationalgc.com/ it has lots of pics and details about the Golf Course.

[macmini]

From the NY Daily News

Originally published on August 17, 2005



Side dish

The people of Boonton, N.J., turned down two requests for "The Sopranos" to shoot in their town. But Jersey City apparently doesn't think the mob hit will tarnish its image. We hear James Gandolfini and his crew will be filming one of the sixth season's last episodes at the Beacon, a new $350 million residential community at what used to be the Jersey City Medical Center ...

[macmini]

WALDO LOFTS

artist live/work lofts this brand-new building will be designed with all the amenities so artists can comfortably live and work in the same space.

The building will be 12-story structure, consisting of 82 lofts with the following unit breakdown:

* 52 1-BR
* 30 2-BR

The building sits above a 36-space parking garage plus a frieght elevator for loading / unloading art and art supplies. The building lobby will be dedicated to art related uses. In addition, a 100-seat restuarant is planned as well as 3,860 of retail space.

The following units have been set aside for ACB-certified artists and thus will not be built-out (raw space)

* 2A - 1BR / 1BA / den / balcony - 1,032 sq ft
* 2E - 1BR / 1BA / den / balcony - 869 sq ft
* 3B - 1BR / 1BA / den - 1017 sq ft
* 3C - Studio / 1BA / den - 828 sq ft
* 4G - 1BR / 1BA 926 sq ft
* 5D - 1B / 1BA / balcony - 854 sq ft
* 6E - 1BR / 1BA / den / balcony - 869 sq ft

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/waldo_lofts_frontcolor.jpg

http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/waldo_lofts_sideconstruction.jpg

[macmini]

Two factories near JC/Hoboken line to be redeveloped as condos
Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer

In the next two weeks, two old Jersey City buildings near the Jersey City/Hoboken border will be in the spotlight.

The Koven Stove Works building on Paterson Plank Road and Mountain Road was the subject of a resolution passed by Jersey City's City Council at their Wednesday meeting, and The Van Leer Chocolate Factory site on 110-114 Hoboken Ave. near Holland Tunnel is the subject of a community meeting this coming Thursday where developers will present redevelopment plans.

Residents are likely to see the following:

* The Koven Stone Works will be turned into 128 market-rate housing units with 88 parking spaces, and the developers will reconstruct the "100 steps" leading down the Palisades from Jersey City to Hoboken. The City Council voted last week on a developer's agreement to ensure that construction does not damage the Palisade cliffs.

* The Van Leer Chocolate Factory site may see more than 900 condominium units with parking, 8,000 square feet of retail space, a one-acre park, a walkway leading down Hoboken Avenue from the Heights onto the property, as well as a shorter walkway leading to the Second Street Light Rail Station in Hoboken. The plan will go to the Planning Board in August.

Keeping factory features


Much of the area near the border is an industrial no-man's land with abandoned factories that were once hallmarks of Jersey City's industrial past.

But it has been common to employ the principle of "adaptive reuse" to turn urban factory buildings into new residences, while keeping their appealing industrial features.

The Dixon Mills Apartments on Wayne Street in Jersey City were once home to the Dixon Pencil Company. The Whitlock Cordage building on Manning Street, previously the headquarters of ropemakers Whitlock Cordage, will soon be the site of 330 mixed-income townhouses.
Something's cooking at Koven Stove



The Koven Stove Works is a familiar sight for those driving up Paterson Plank Road on the hills between the two tunnels.

The structure is a long, brick warehouse with a sign placed on the exterior that reads "Bookbinders" and advertisements for adopting puppies and getting a mortgage.

But in the next two years, there will be activity in and around the site, where stoves were once built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, the building served as a storage space for book distributors, earning the name "the Bookbinder Building."

Besides building housing and parking, the developers will expand the one-lane Mountain Road, which runs from behind the building up to Odgen Avenue in the Jersey City Heights. Also, the developer will be responsible for building what is called the "new 100 Steps." The old incarnation of the steps existed on Franklin Street in Jersey City above the Palisade Cliffs and allowed people to walk down into Hoboken. That staircase was removed in the 1920s, according a listing on the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy web site (www.jerseycityhistory.net).

All the development work on the Koven Stove building and in the surrounding area will be done by Brass Works Urban Renewal, LLC, the principal partner being Hoboken developer Sanford Weiss, who developed a number of Hoboken buildings, including 101 Marshall Drive and 98 Park Ave.

The work at Koven Stove is also subject to a developer's agreement that was approved at Wednesday's City Council meeting. The agreement is the result of several years of negotiations between Jersey City Heights residents and the developer, and it calls for the developer to comply with a number of stipulations.

Heights resident Clif Steinbring, president of the Riverview Neighborhood Association, said that the agreement protects the Palisade cliffs during construction.

"The building is located in what is called the Palisades Preservation Overlay District, which protects the Palisade cliffs that runs behind the building," said Steinbring. "There are always concerns that the cliffs will come down, that it will happen if there isn't any protection."

The district, approved by the City Council in April 2001, allows for development within an area along the Palisades from Montgomery Street north to the Union City boundary line. But there are special regulations to ensure that the construction does not disturb the structure of the Palisade Cliffs and that the building is not high enough to block Heights residents' views.

The developer's agreement approved on Wednesday will ensure that stabilization procedures are put in place before construction begins. They include fencing at the top of the cliffs, and the installation of monitoring equipment in the homes there.

Also, affected property owners will receive a notice from the developer alerting them to home inspections in case the developer needs to pay for additional insurance coverage.

During construction, there will be drilling, not blasting, and sound will be muffled as the work will be done.

The building height will climb from three stories to five.

Steinbring, who works in the development business, said that the agreement makes the project unique.

"Most projects do not have a developer's agreement. But the [RNA's] attitude is that we don't want to go into a project looking for a lawsuit, but rather [have] an agreement," said Steinbring.

Pre-construction stabilization is to commence in September or October, and construction for the project will start next year.

Sweet happenings at Van Leer



What was the Van Leer chocolate factory building on Hoboken Avenue is now but a mere shell of its former self.

The company, which closed its operations in 2001 after being sold to a Swiss company, decided to tear down the building to ward off vagrants who would have used the building as shelter.

Indeed, a recent visit to the site revealed that a homeless person had left a blanket and a shopping cart there.

But if Hoboken developers George Vallone and Danny Gans have their way, the site will see new occupants of a different sort. Vallone and Gans of the development firm Hoboken Brownstone will, in the next five to six years, build market-rate housing on two sections of the Van Leer factory property, a total of seven acres.

Vallone said he has known the Van Leer family since 1996 but had to wait for two other developers to back out of developing the area before he and Gans entered into a contract with the Van Leers to develop in October 2004.

Vallone is excited about the transformation of the site, provided he gets Planning Board approval.

"There is not a lot of land left in Jersey City to build upon, and when you can find seven acres of land available, then you go for it," said Vallone. "In real estate, it's all about location."

Construction would start in early 2007. A cleanup would take place six to nine months before that since the site contains a high concentration of white cake arsenic dumped there before the Van Leer factory existed, said Vallone.

Nearly 950 units would be spread over seven acres and broken into two sections.

Vallone also said that 8,000 square feet of retail space will be built for a restaurant.

The condominiums would sell for $300,000 to $900,000.




©The Hudson Reporter 2005

[macmini]

$800K walkway from JC to Hoboken?
Federal bill gives $$$ to new transportation projects

Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer 08/05/2005

THE PATH TO MONEY – The Pavonia-Newport PATH Station will have another entrance in the future with the help of $1.67 million earmarked by the federal government through the efforts of U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez.
Congress passed a $286 billion federal transportation bill last Friday that included $44.5 million for Hudson County's highway and transit projects.

These will include a $800,000 walkway between Hoboken and Jersey City over Long Slip Channel, allowing Jersey City residents to get off trains and buses at the Hoboken terminal and have the choice to walk over to Newport.

Additionally, $840,000 is allotted for a parking facility with 767 spaces in the McGinley Square section. The facility would house retail space on the street level.

Former Ward E City Councilman E. Junior Maldonado said that the Jersey City/Hoboken walkway, besides increasing transportation options, would help bridge a gap in the state-mandated waterfront walkway that spans from Fort Lee to Bayonne. He said that NJ Transit owns this body of water, but they had said in the past there was no money to develop the walkway.

SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users) is a bill that guarantees funding over a six year period from 2004 to 2009.

Congressman Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.), responsible for much of the money earmarked, was enthusiastic about the bill providing $167 million for the district he represents, in particular funding for the Liberty Corridor.

A number of projects will see money pouring in once the bill goes into effect later this year. In Jersey City, six projects will receive a total of $7.3 million in funding.


They are:
-The rehabilitation of Route 139 - $1.6 million;
-Construction of West Entrance to Pavonia-Newport PATH Station - $1.67 million;
-McGinley Square Intermodal Facility - $840,000;
-Possible public walkway and bike path over Sixth Street Embankment - $1.6 million;
-Route 440 Rehabilitation and Boulevard Creation Project - $1 million;
-The Jersey City/Hoboken walkway, $800,000.


Rehabilitation of Route 139, viaducts

The $1.6 million in federal dollars for the rehabilitation of Route 139 will help defray some of the $209 million that the state Department of Transportation is spending there. The project will see the repair of the 12th and 14th Street viaducts in Downtown Jersey City. The viaducts, both of which are over 60 years old, support the roads that lead to and from the Holland Tunnel.

Work on the first phase started last month with construction under the 14th Street Viaduct and will continue through October. The entire project is expected to be completed in 2010.

Several meetings were organized by former Ward E City Councilman E. Junior Maldonado in the past year and a half to address concerns by downtown residents of increased traffic during construction.

Marc Lavorgna, spokesperson for the NJDOT, said that the $1.6 million in federal funds for the viaduct project will allow the state to use $1.6 million of their own money for other state projects.


Menendez and the Liberty Corridor

Of the $167 million that Rep. Robert Menendez brought to the 13th Congressional district, $104 million will go towards developing the Liberty Corridor.

This is a concept that Menendez laid out several years ago that would reinvest in the infrastructure of the region, creating a more investor-friendly, more modern industrial area.

"The Liberty Corridor is more than a collection of highways and rail lines. The Corridor will be an economic engine like no other in the country. Research and development, manufacturing and export facilities will co-exist next to one another along one Corridor," said Menendez.

Liberty Corridor, which emanates from the port of New York and New Jersey, travels north, south and west along railways, roadways and waterways. The $104 million will fund projects that help to improve the infrastructure in the Corridor, with the goal of being able to move freight more efficiently from Port Newark and Port Elizabeth, which will decrease the amount of truck traffic on the area's already overcrowded highways. It also is intended to stimulate the revitalization of contaminated sites around the Port region, attract new manufacturing and distribution centers with jobs, and strengthen the Port's status as the pre-eminent trade center of the East Coast.

There are over 1,000 acres of old industrial sites within 25 miles of the port. These underutilized sites can be redeveloped as freight and manufacturing villages that afford the region new jobs. In addition, these improved transportation links will permit a more efficient movement of cargo to and from existing distribution center clusters. - Al Sullivan


©The Hudson Reporter 2005

[macmini]

Planning Board OKs two condo projects

But one faced County opposition, the other possible chemical contamination


The Planning Board at its meeting on Aug. 23 approved site plans for two condominium projects.

One was for 92 condos with 92 parking spaces to be built on an empty lot between Oakland Avenue and Cook Street.

The second was for 83 condos with 100 parking spaces to be constructed on the site of an old chemical factory on Sussex and Van Vorst streets. There will be 19 one-bedroom units, 62 two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units in the proposed project, to be known as Lofts at Van Vorst.

But both projects are each bound by circumstances that almost prevented them from being approved.

In the case of the Van Vorst Street project, the company that previously operated in the building was assessed nearly $2 million in fines for past violations regarding improper storage of chemicals. Planning Board members and residents living near the building questioned if the company paid the fines and, more importantly, whether the chemicals in the building will be cleaned up before any construction begins.

The Oakland Avenue/Cook Street project has been delayed in past months for presentation in front of the Planning Board. The county has had designs on building a new courthouse and office building on a block of land encompassing Oakland Avenue, Cook Street, Newark Avenue and Hoboken Avenue.

The Hart of the problem

The Hart Chemical Products Company once operated a three-story soap factory at 203-207 Van Vorst St. In February 2003, they were assessed over $1.8 million in fines by the Jersey City Fire Department after an inspection found hazardous chemicals being stored improperly and other violations. In May 2003, smoke filled the building as the result of a chemical chain reaction, leading to the factory being shut down by Hart Chemical, rather than correcting any violations.

That building at the corner of Sussex and Van Vorst streets has since stood vacant.

But there will be activity in that area in the next year if plans go through to demolish the building and build a seven-story building with 83 condos and 100 spaces of parking.

Approval at an Aug. 23 Planning Board meeting was the first step toward that project becoming a reality, as the developers received variances for the amount of stories that would be built and the overall height of the building.

But at the same meeting, questions arose from Planning Board Commissioner Jeni Branum about any chemicals that were still on the premises and whether or not the fines had been paid.

Residents also addressed the board about the situation regarding the chemicals and the fines.

The attorney for the developers, Charles Harrington, said that he knew nothing about the fines that were assessed but said that the cleanup of the chemicals was being addressed at the present time.

Confirming Harrington's statement about the cleanup is an Aug. 9 letter from 203-207 Van Vorst LLC (also known as the Fields Development Group), the Hoboken-based developers of the project.

The letter says not only that 203-207 Van Vorst LLC is the contract purchaser of the property but that there is a remediation plan in the works that is close to being finalized with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Larry O' Rourke, general counsel for Fields Development, said last week that Fields has done more than a year of testing and that once the testing is approved by the state, then Fields Development can close on purchasing the building from the current owner within a 30-day period.

As for the fines, calls were made to city attorney Joanne Monahan who said she would look into the matter. Also, 79-01 Associates, the Glendale, N.Y.-based current owner of the building, were contacted about the fines but did not return any calls before this article went to press.

County looking elsewhere

The approval by the Planning Board of the Oakland Avenue/Cook Street project was a long time coming for the developers.

Tony Deluco and his partners Harry Persaud and Mohan Myneni of M&H Developers LLC had their application for a hearing in front of the Planning Board postponed several times before it was scheduled for the Aug. 23 meeting. The main obstacle was county officials looking at land across the street from the current Hudson County Administration Building and the county's William Brennan Courthouse on Newark Avenue as the site for a new courthouse.

However, some residents in the area opposed the county's plans, favoring housing instead. Deluco also met with county officials to discuss their plans. But approval was given for the 160,958 square foot development that will also include over 1,500 square feet of retail.

City planning director Robert Cotter said last week that the approval was given since the project met the requirements for development in that area and did not require any variances.

County spokesman Jim Kennelly said last week that the county had stopped considering the site and are looking at property already owned by the county.

Kennelly noted that the county would have had to embark on seizing the property on Oakland and Cook by eminent domain, which would have required paying the property owner and also going against the wishes of the municipality.


©The Hudson Reporter 2005

[macmini]

Project Updates

Montgomery Greene Condominiums

Height: 210 Feet
started: n/a
finished: 2006
113-unit building
4,500 square feet of retail space
123-space parking garage
Under Construction

http://image64.webshots.com/164/2/71/82/445927182ClOVWq_ph.jpg

http://image63.webshots.com/63/2/73/41/445927341HXeSNK_ph.jpg

http://www.lwdm-architects.com/Images/imgnewpg/Exteriormont.jpg
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Washington Commons - 12 stories
Christopher Columbus Drive & Washington Street
started:2005
finished: n/a
77-unit building with 46 parking spaces
Under Construction

http://image53.webshots.com/53/5/16/28/445551628HrsvXh_ph.jpg

[IMG]http://image54.webshots.com/154/4/99/45/445549945DNdixw_ph.jpg/IMG]

http://image53.webshots.com/53/5/16/28/445551628HrsvXh_ph.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Condominiums By The Athena Group -32 stories
Washington Blvd & First Street
started: 2005
finished: 2006
250-unit & 253 parking spaces
13,500 quare feet of retail
Under Construction

New Rendering

http://www.insidea.com/images/02/buildingTower.jpg

[macmini]

New Projects Under construction

LIBERTY TERRACE
started: 2005
finished: 2006
nine-story, 128-unit
95 1-BR
20 2-BR

Units went on sale three weeks ago 45% of the units have been sold.unobstructed views of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, not to mention Downtown NYC. The building entrance will set back from Hudson Street on the eastern side of the building an on Essex Street, right along the Light Rail line. Some units are going for 1 million+.

http://image58.webshots.com/58/2/28/14/445922814wgKtnK_ph.jpg

http://image52.webshots.com/52/2/29/5/445922905DgbsZn_ph.jpg

http://image62.webshots.com/162/2/22/71/445922271aJYEsG_ph.jpg

http://image57.webshots.com/57/2/20/94/445922094soEKDx_ph.jpg

[colemonkee]

Gettin' red x's for the last four pics. Everything else looks decent, though.

[macmini]

Thier all working for me I don't no whats wrong.

[macmini]

Being Renovated

150 Bay Street
started: 2005
finished: 2006

150 Bay Street is a former warehouse that has been redesigned to give artists the space to let their talents flourish in music, dance, written word and the visual arts. Located minutes from Manhattan by PATH train, the loft rentals feature 14’ ceilings, oversized windows, work sinks, freight elevators, and extra wide doors to make the work portion of life easier. For the living experience, 150 Bay Street has been fitted with fully equipped kitchens, high-speed Internet wiring, a 24-hour attended lobby, and on-site fitness center.

http://www.150baystreet.com/

http://image57.webshots.com/57/2/55/88/445925588CSkqWG_ph.jpg

http://image56.webshots.com/56/2/61/52/445926152eWitss_ph.jpg

[Swede]

I'm getting redXs too. :(

[macmini]

Manhattan Skyline Views, Trump Style

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: September 18, 2005

DONALD J. TRUMP is moving into Jersey City in a big way. He is set to announce this week that construction of Trump Plaza, a $415 million condominium project to include the two tallest residential towers in New Jersey, will begin in November - with occupancy projected to start in fall 2007.

Metro Homes of Hoboken will team up with the Trump Organization in building the project, which is also to include retailing space, parking and amenities for residents like a rooftop pool, fitness center, business center and private film theater.

Dean S. Geibel, who with his partner Paul E. Fried runs Metro Homes, said he initially pitched the idea to Mr. Trump. "We know he likes to do things that are big," Mr. Geibel said, "and this is really big. Plus, it will be highly visible from Manhattan, and so it's right up Trump's alley."

Trump Plaza will be set on a riverside plot at Washington Boulevard and Bay Street, and the triangular design of its two towers, 50 and 55 stories tall and rising from a seven-story base, will permit views of the Manhattan skyline across the Hudson River from almost every apartment, Mr. Geibel said.

The 55-story tower will have 445 condos; the 50-story tower will provide 417. The 328,658-square-foot, seven-story base will house a garage with 696 parking spaces and 23,000 square feet of retailing space.

The two-story building lobby will be "classic Trump, extravagant and classy," Mr. Geibel said.

The condos will range in size from studios to three-bedroom units, offering from 750 to 2,224 square feet.

Neither Mr. Geibel nor the Trump Organization specified a price range for the condos but said more details would be forthcoming on Thursday at a formal announcement of the project.

Currently, the tallest residential building in New Jersey stands only two blocks away from the Trump Plaza site. It is the 40-story Marbella apartment building at 425 Washington Boulevard.

The state's tallest building is also nearby, the 781-foot Goldman Sachs office tower at 30 Hudson Street.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/realestate/18post2.html

[macmini]

DONALD TRUMP, DEAN GEIBEL ANNOUNCE PLANS FOR LUXURY CONDOS IN TALLEST RESIDENTIAL TOWERS IN NEW JERSEY

Trump Plaza: Jersey City Towers Include Condos, Retail and Parking
http://www.metrohomesllc.com/images/trump_pr.jpg
SEPTEMBER 22, 2005 - Trump Organization CEO Donald Trump, Metro Homes Founder Dean Geibel and his partner Paul Fried today announced construction will begin on Trump Plaza: Jersey City, a $415 million condominium project that will include the two tallest residential towers in the state of New Jersey. Construction will begin this year with occupancy beginning in November 2007, Trump and Geibel said.

Trump Plaza, at Washington and Bay Streets, will include a 531,500 square-foot tower, topping out at 55 stories, with 445 condominium homes, and a 481,283 square-foot tower, reaching 50 stories, with 417 condominium homes. The towers will rise from a 328,658 square-foot, seven-story base, housing a garage with 696 parking spaces and 23,000 square feet of prime retail space. The base will accommodate a business center, home theater screening room, a private 8,000 square foot fitness center, a rooftop plaza with an outdoor heated swimming pool, a private landscaped yard, children's play area and enclosed basketball court.

"The addition of this luxury structure to Jersey City's Gold Coast is a testament to the attraction of our city as a destination for people to live, work, and raise families. We are pleased to welcome Mr. Trump and Mr. Geibel as developers of this project whose shared vision contributes to the continued growth and success of our downtown revitalization," said Jersey City's Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy.

"We are honored to be working with Donald Trump to create a world-class living experience in Jersey City with its incomparable views of the world's most famous skyline, outstanding amenities and convenient transportation links. I also want to thank Mayor Healy for his efforts to create an environment where Trump Plaza is possible." said Geibel, whose Hoboken-based Metro Homes LLC is the developer of the project.

"This is a quality project, worthy of the Trump name, rising in one of the most exciting places on the planet today - Jersey City," said Trump. "The Trump Organization participated in the design and invested in the project, and we will manage Trump Plaza to ensure that the people who live here will fully enjoy this great urban lifestyle."

Because of the positioning and triangular design of the residential towers, most units will have Manhattan skyline views.

The lobby will be an extravagant two-story structure, serving as a statement piece for the building and will be attended by a 24-hour professional concierge service. The studios, one-, two-, and three bedroom residential units will range in size from 750 to 2,224 square-feet. The units will have state of the art kitchens and appliances, marble bathrooms and distinctive wood floors. Comparable properties are two of the Trump Organization's Westside Manhattan properties - 200 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place and 240 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place.

Working with Mayor Healey and other elected officials in Jersey City and Hudson County, Metro Homes secured property tax abatements which will be passed on to condominium owners.

Metro Homes LLC presently is developing Gull's Cove, a community of 431 condominium residences that is part of Jersey City's Liberty Harbor North redevelopment effort; and The Esperanza of Asbury Park, 224 condominium residences in Asbury Park's celebrated oceanfront redevelopment district.

Panepinto Properties and The Applied Companies, the original owners and developers of the project, remain as partners in the development. Trump Plaza was designed by the Manhattan-based DeWitt Tishman Architects. Bovis Lend Lease will construct the project.

###
Metro Homes LLC was founded in 1993 by real estate entrepreneur Dean S. Geibel. He and his partner, Paul E. Fried, manage one of New Jersey's most integrated and well-balanced real estate firms specializing in urban development and revitalization. The Hoboken-based company has built hundreds of condominium residences in Hudson County and is in the forefront of New Jersey's "smart growth" development.
Rubenstein Associates, Inc.
Public Relations
Contact: Pat Smith - (212) 843-8026

[colemonkee]

Man, Trump is everywhere! Good news getting two tall residentials for Jersey City, but I'm not too impressed by the design. Trump can do better than this.

[JACKinNYC]

The buildings' style looks very similar to the Trump upper west side project.

[macmini]

Project Update


COLUMBUS PLAZA

Designed by world renowned architect Costas Kondylis
They designed 200 Chambers Street (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=224797)


38-story building featuring 392 rental residences
24-hour doorman with full-time professional concierge
Double height lobby, and a 6,000 square-foot, two-story
recreation center
on-site access to the Grove Street PATH Station
36,000 square feet of ground floor retail space
30,000 square feet of office space
a multi-level 1,120-car parking garag


Pics are from JCVibe their about two or three months old I just past the site last week and the foundation is complete they were up to 3rd floor.


Columbus Plaza construction site, mid-block
http://image52.webshots.com/152/5/58/88/456955888ZcDwoj_ph.jpg

Columbus Plaza construction site, facing southeast
http://image64.webshots.com/164/5/46/79/456954679FbjLpc_ph.jpg

http://image58.webshots.com/58/5/40/59/456954059FyjqSf_ph.jpg

[kazpmk]

Great news


BTW is Athena still UC??? It is now approved according to emporis.

[macmini]

Great news


BTW is Athena still UC??? It is now approved according to emporis.

Construction will start in October Athena is not the name of the building but the Developer. The building is called A Condominiums I think.

www.insidea.com

[macmini]

Old Hospital Yields Quirky Apartments

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/10/30/realestate/30njzo.xl.jpg
Keith Meyers/The New York Times

The sales center at the Beacon, at Montgomery Street and Baldwin Avenue, Jersey City, is to open this week, offering the first 315 condos.

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: October 30, 2005

JERSEY CITY

THE first apartments resulting from the transformation of the historic Art Deco buildings that served for seven decades as this city's medical center are about to go on the market.

Eventually, eight massive structures will be renovated into a complex called the Beacon, with 1,200 condominium and rental apartments, ground-floor shops, restaurants and a huge fitness/lifestyle center.

Right now, the first two buildings - 22 and 21 stories tall - are in mid-makeover, being scrubbed clean of the residue of 60-plus years.

Thanks to workers in rain gear wielding power-washing equipment on moving scaffolds, the buildings' facade of blond brick and cast-concrete decorative panels is emerging with classic good looks.

Inside the 22-story tower, renamed the Rialto, there is a sleek model apartment with stone countertops, marble bath and a view of New York Harbor. And this week, a new sales and marketing center is to open.

The first 315 condos - studios, lofts, one- and two-bedroom units - in the Rialto and the adjacent Capitol will become available for occupancy late next year. But 113 are already spoken for. In the last three weeks, the 1,500 people who had put their names on a waiting list were notified they could start shopping early.

"So far, 4 of every 10 lookers has signed a contract," said the developer, George Filopoulos, president of Metrovest Equities Inc., the New York firm that is behind the project. "That's phenomenal, and just shows how high excitement is running."

Adrienne Albert, president of Marketing Directors Inc., the sales agent for the Beacon, added that "one of the most exciting aspects of the Beacon is that it's being priced well below already established levels for new condominium construction in Jersey City's waterfront district."

The price range for condos in the first two buildings is $250,000 to $650,000, Mr. Filopoulos said. It is not yet certain how many of the 1,200 total units will be condos and how many will be rental units, he said.

But the plan for the new community has already been expanded since being announced last winter. Several weeks ago, Metrovest was named by city officials to redevelop another parcel immediately south of the medical center property.

On that site, the company will construct a 150,000-square-foot supermarket and shopping plaza and 220 new residential units, clustered in three-story buildings. These will not be tall enough to interfere with the views of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from apartments at the Beacon, which is on Palisades Ridge, at the corner of Montgomery Street and Baldwin Avenue, a high point in Jersey City.

Mr. Filopoulos said that the apartments and condos at the second site will not offer the kinds of unusual features available at the Beacon, where the hospital buildings had grand and capacious halls that are the legacy of lavish government-subsidized construction.

The eight structures were built during the 1930's and 40's, contemporary with Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Waldorf-Astoria and the Empire State Building. They cannot be destroyed or significantly altered because they were placed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places about 20 years ago. The last building was vacated in 2004.

"We're stuck with a lot of these things," said Mr. Filopoulos as strode through the restored grand lobby - two stories tall, with a terrazzo floor, brass Deco moldings, elaborate light fixtures and hand-painted elevator door mirrors - "so we figured we might as well have fun with them."

Architects have designed the apartments to take advantage of the buildings' quirks of layout and special features like period molding. There are 130 different floor plans for the first 315 units, Mr. Filopoulos said. They range in size from 600 square feet to 3,200.

The condos all have at least 10-foot ceilings, stone countertops in the kitchens, lighted glass backsplashes, pantries, stainless steel appliances, marble baths, hardwood floors, high-tech wiring and washers and dryers.

Meanwhile, developers have piled on the amenities. The Rialto and Capitol share a grand lobby and an area that holds the Aqua, "a lifestyle and fitness center." It will offer an indoor pool, a large "social sauna," private steam and sauna rooms, a lounge with hot tubs, a yoga room, a workout room, a film screening room, a children's playroom and a juice bar lounge.

Above the two-story lobby, on what is being called the terrace floor - where a longtime mayor of Jersey City, Frank Hague, kept his apartment for many years - there will be a community billiards room, poker room, theater or event space, catering kitchen, large dining room and a reading gallery.

In addition, the terrace will have an outdoor lounge and sun deck with a grill, and a spectacular view of Midtown Manhattan. The terrace and other common spaces can be rented for private parties, the developer said.

Among other features that are being planned for the development are a "town center," to be installed in an adjacent building, which will have a large market, a restaurant with a rooftop terrace and stores.

Future plans include an on-site day-care center and a two-acre "great lawn." Valet parking and a shuttle bus to Exchange Place, PATH trains and ferries to Manhattan are also planned.

[macmini]

LOOKS LIKE A SHORE THING

http://www.nypost.com/photos/re11052005044a.jpg

November 5, 2005 -- A flurry of buyers has descended on the Shore Club Condominiums at Newport, the latest addition to Jersey City's Newport community.

Since opening for sales in late September, 184 of the building's 214 units have sold, despite the fact that developer LeFrak Organization did not advertise the condos.

So what drew buyers? Jamie LeFrak, general manager at LeFrak Organization, believes that buyers, the majority of whom were already renters at Newport, simply saw the Web site address posted on the construction lot of Shore Club.

A sprawling, 600-acre mixed-use community along the Hudson, Newport is also likely to attract Manhattanites looking for more space, according to LeFrak. Prices start at $395,000 for 780-square-foot one-bedrooms, $548,000 for 1,100-square-foot two-bedrooms, and $795,000 for 1,420-square-foot three-bedrooms (all sizes are approximates). All but four units come with terraces, while the top floor of the building includes a Wellness Center (with a steam room and sauna), a spa with whirlpool, gym and playroom.

www.shoreclubatnewport.com

http://64.209.119.249/hugesize.jpg

[macmini]

update on 77 Hudson (http://www.77hudson.com) K Hov and Equity Residential are doing a joint venture. It will consist of two residential towers one will be condos and the other rentals. The original plan for 77 Hudson by Hartz was for an 32 story office tower.

**77 Hudson – Khovnanian

48 stories, 39 above a 9 story parking garage

Two towers, 896 units; 500 foot height requirement met

½ rental: $1800 – 3700/mo

½ condo: $700k - $1M+

21k sf commercial on ground level – primarily Grand Street

Street entrances on Greene and Hudson

Garage entrance and services on Morris

Foundation work starts mid-2006

28-30 months to complete – 2009

1 parking space per unit met

[macmini]

December 2005

In New Jersey, a boom focuses eastward

Lower sales prices and Manhattan views dot the Hudson River with new condo projects
By Alison Gregor

http://www.therealdeal.net//issues/DECEMBER_2005/images/1133404553.jpg
Development heats up across the Hudson: Jamie LeFrak at the site of the Shore Club Condominiums in Jersey City, across from Lower Manhattan.

Residential real estate developers are mining profits from New Jersey's "Gold Coast," where a building boom has conferred new cachet on a handful of Hudson River towns that have sometimes been overlooked. From Jersey City to Fort Lee, the riverfront communities across the Hudson from Manhattan are seeing new luxury development that competes with New York City projects loaded with amenities, but at half the price.

Developers say both condominiums and rental apartments are being snapped up. The Hudson Club at Port Imperial, a 344-unit condominium conversion in West New York, sold 50 apartments in its first week on the market in early November, said Beth Fisher, senior managing director at the Corcoran Group.

South of there, the Shore Club, being developed by the LeFrak Organization in Jersey City, moved 196 of 214 units in just over two months. The Beacon, a $350 million historical redevelopment project also located in Jersey City, slightly further inland, sold almost half of its 315 available units in five weeks, developer George Filopoulos, president of Metrovest Equities, said.

Buyers are responding to bargain-basement prices that are a subway stop away – at least in the Jersey City area, which is accessible by PATH trains that run all day.

"Jersey City got into the condo game a little later than the surrounding areas," Filopoulos said. "But you still have an opportunity to purchase an apartment at half of what it costs right across the river. As long as that remains the price point, I think all these projects slated for development will do very well."

The units being created in Jersey City and other Hudson County cities are mostly one- and two-bedroom apartments, along with a handful of studios, though the latter are typically more popular in Manhattan. There are fewer apartments with three bedrooms or more, though towns in formerly industrial parts of Bergen County are seeing the development of many townhouses as suburbanization spreads.

Besides The Beacon, which is pricing studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments from $300,000 to $700,000, there are several other projects in Jersey City, an urban area with a multitude of mass transit options and a commercial downtown viewed as an extension of Manhattan.

At the Zephyr Lofts in Jersey City, studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms are asking about $500 a square foot, around half the price of new development in Manhattan. Similarly, at the waterfront project Port Liberté, also in Jersey City, 766-square-foot condos start at $345,000.

A loft rental conversion called 150 Bay Street recently opened in the Powerhouse Warehouse Arts District, a formerly commercial area being marketed to artists as Jersey City's Soho. Developer Jeff Gural, chairman at Newmark, said he's testing the market for rentals among the new wave of condominiums. "It's tough to do a rental, because Jersey City really doesn't give you much of an incentive tax-wise," he said. "New York City gives you much bigger real estate tax incentives to do rentals."

Condominiums are a different story. A partnership of the Athena Group and GoldenTree InSite Partners is doing a $110 million, 33-story condo project called "A" condominiums with about 250 units.

Louis Dubin, Athena Group's president and CEO, said cheap land costs make condo development lucrative. "The land cost is considerably lower across the river in New Jersey, by a factor of anywhere from two to four," said the New York-based developer. "And although the projects on the Jersey waterfront tend to be union, like in Manhattan, construction costs tend to be a little less.

"Our opening prices are going to be a little bit less than half of the median for a new condominium in Manhattan," Dubin added. "The median is about $1,100 a square foot, and we're opening at between $525 and $550 a foot. It's a great deal."

About half of the developers working on New Jersey's Gold Coast are from New York, and half are from New Jersey or elsewhere, said developer Jamie LeFrak of the LeFrak Organization, one of the coastal area's largest developers. There are some advantages to developing property in New Jersey.

"Because of the difference in the way zoning is handled, our zoning is per dwelling unit in Jersey City, not per floor-area ratio, so apartments tend to be quite large and very liveable," LeFrak said. "A one-bedroom apartment is more like 800 square feet, unlike New York, where you'd see 650 square feet."

Even so, New York City has a much better scheme for tax abatements, LeFrak said, not to mention that publicity for new projects is well above that seen on New Jersey's coast.

"Somebody puts up eight units in Brooklyn, and suddenly, Brooklyn is Versailles," he said. "In Jersey City, there's been luxury high-rise development since we started there in 1985, but it still typically gets passed over by the New York-centric media. In a funny way, the same thing tends to be true of New Jersey media, which view the state's own waterfront as an extension of Manhattan."

The media may not overlook New Jersey's Gold Coast for long. The quantity of new residential development is catching attention – and may be inflating prices.

"The big thing with the whole Jersey City market right now is new construction, which is, of course, driving up all the other prices," said Michael Miller, a broker with New Jersey Gold Coast Real Estate. But the upper end of the market is still a struggle, he says. "Our hardest sale, especially in Jersey City, is $1 million and above. If a client comes here looking for that, they've probably already looked in Manhattan and determined they like the Jersey City lifestyle."

That lifestyle still may be lacking in retail services, though developers are providing a lot of commercial as part of their residential developments. For instance, more retail of is needed in Paulus Hook, Jersey City's answer to Greenwich Village, Filopoulos said.

But buyers are still flooding into the area. They include not only young professionals and growing families priced out of the New York market. Many buyers are "empty nesters" from inland New Jersey and even other parts of the country, Filopoulos said.


Developers build for a view

The market for New Jersey waterfront development appears to be bottomless as long as a project can offer views of Manhattan's skyscrapers.

Whether residents are commuting to Downtown Manhattan from Hoboken or to Midtown from north of Weehawken, they all have unparalleled views of a world-renowned skyline. Now there's enough growth in the area that builders can design projects to attract specific groups of potential buyers, rather than putting up a riverview building and seeing who wants to look east.

"The focus of every building we've done is views, views and more views, because that's really what developers are selling," said Michael Gelfand, partner and head of residential design at architects Gruzen Samton LLP.

The firm, which has an office in New York, is working on a project in just about every town along the Gold Coast of New Jersey, Gelfand said. Among them are the Watermark, WCI Communities' 206-unit condominium on River Road in North Bergen, and Tarragon Corporation's 168-unit development One Hudson Park – the first new construction high-rise condominium to be built in Edgewater, just across the water from the Upper West Side and Harlem.

The latter is completely feng shui-inspired and intended to appeal to Edgewater's Asian community, which may indicate how much the Gold Coast market has matured, Gelfand said.

"Because the market has gotten bigger, these don't have to be generic buildings that appeal to anybody and everybody because these are pioneering neighborhoods," he said. "Now that demand has increased, you're going to see these buildings geared more toward specific demographics."

Along those lines, Florida's WCI Communities, which bills itself as the largest publicly-held developer of luxury residential towers, will be offering a resort-style development in the Watermark that appeals to the company's typical buyer – one located outside of the New York City metropolitan area, Gelfand said.

Michael Miller, a broker with New Jersey Gold Coast Real Estate, said that the large amount of residential development coming to the market on the Gold Coast has led him to caution investors.

"I tell them, especially those looking [in Bergen County], to look at things that have unique properties to them," he said. "I think it may become a difficult market if you buy a condominium that doesn't have anything unique to it, like a view of Manhattan or larger square footage."

[kazpmk]

so did trump tower NJ and athena begin construction in Nov like they were supposed to

[macmini]

so did trump tower NJ and athena begin construction in Nov like they were supposed to

The Athena tower started construction in November but The Trump tower has yet to start.

[macmini]

700 Grove
700 Grove Street
www.700grove.com
Developer: Toll Brothers
Condo's
started: 2005
finished: 2006
Stories: 12
230-unit

http://static.flickr.com/41/88329955_bee057146f_o.jpg

[macmini]

Liberty harbor
http://www.libertyharbor.com/index.php

The Liberty Harbor North Redevelopment is ready to leap from the drawing board into reality!

Peter Mocco and Jeff Zak are the principal developers of the $2 billion project. Andres Duany, chief architect of Liberty Harbor North, is known for the famed "New Urbanism" city planning concept, as exemplified by the Seaside development in Florida.

The 86-acre mixed-use development will have more than 6,000 units in housing; 775,000 square-feet for retail; 175,000 square-feet for school facilties; 1.1 million square-feet for a hotel; and 4.6 million square-feet for offices.


http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/405.jpg
During the Spring months of 2005, we’ve been working hard developing Liberty Harbor. And as we survey the grounds in April, we see five brand new City roads, seven blocks worth of new basement and garage construction, and the foundations and footings for our beautiful homes in Section 1.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/505.jpg
Should you find yourself winding through Grand Street and Liberty View Drive in May, you’ll see our masons preparing the grounds for the pouring of townhouse and brownstone foundations. Meanwhile, we continue our work shaping and developing the seven new City blocks on our site.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/605ii.jpg
June 2005

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/705.jpg
Summer is in full swing, and so is construction throughout Liberty Harbor. Our roads are growing, utilities are being connected, and no fewer than three new City blocks of townhouses and brownstones are rising from their construction sites. Perhaps most exciting of all, the largest structure in our community, the Condominium, has its foundation in place as we prepare for its framing to begin.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/805ii.jpg
Construction is now in full view, the lumber has arrived. The townhouses and brownstones are being framed; the first floors are just taking shape. All other construction is moving forward on schedule.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/905.jpg
The townhouses and brownstones we began in the Spring have come into their own. These luxury homes in sections 4 and 1 have transformed the landscape of Grand Street from a site of great potential to a warm, welcoming neighborhood.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/1005.jpg
Standing at our newly constructed intersection between Liberty View Drive and Grand Street, you’ll greet the epically beautiful Statue of Liberty in unobstructed sight. Our luxury townhouses and brownstones are completely framed. Soon their structures will be complete when the roofers arrive to cap these beautiful homes.

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/1105ii.jpg
November 2005

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/1205i.jpg
December 2005

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/0106i.jpg
January 2006

http://www.libertyharbor.com/images/0206i.jpg
February 2006

[macmini]

GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Trump Partner Gets $171M Loan
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: January 18, 2006 08:20am

JERSEY CITY-Corus Bank has closed on a $171-million loan to Vector Urban Renewal Associates I, an affiliate of the Hoboken-based Metro Homes and its head, Dean Geibel. The financing is for Trump, Jersey City, a massive residential/retail complex that Metro Homes and Geibel are developing in partnership with Donald J. Trump.

As GlobeSt.com reported at the time, the project was unveiled back in late September with a price tag estimated at $415 million. When completed, it will be operated under the Trump umbrella of properties and managed by the Trump Organization.

“Despite the large loan size, the bank was able to close the transaction without participants,” says Keith Gibbons, first vice president of Corus Bank, a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Corus Bankshares Inc. Rising on a two-acre parcel at Washington and Bay streets in this city’s Exchange Place neighborhood, the complex’s two towers, when completed, will be the tallest buildings in the State of New Jersey. The project will include a 531,500-sf tower topping out at 55 stories and containing 445 condo homes. The second tower, reaching 50 floors, will total more than 480,000 sf and have 417 homes.

Work will start on the larger of the two towers first, and both will be linked by a 330,000-sf, seven-story base that will include a parking structure with a capacity of nearly 700 cars. The base unit will also house 23,000 sf of retail space, a business center, a private 8,000-sf fitness and a rooftop plaza with an outdoor heated pool, among other things.

Construction is being done by Bovis Lend Lease on a design produced by DeWitt Tishman Architects. The development partners are targeting the end of 2007 for initial occupancy.

[macmini]

This was posted by Historyrules on JC List great article in The Sunday Star-Ledger about the PowerHouse located at First Street and Washington Boulevard on the Jersey City waterfront.

http://www.jerseycityhistory.net/Scan10012_1.jpg

http://www.jerseycityhistory.net/Scan10013.jpg

[macmini]

St. Francis Hospital Redevelopment

St. Francis Hospital has been a major anchor on Jersey City's Hamilton Park for nearly 150 years. The Franciscan Sisters of the Pooe founded the hospital originally as a three-story brick house on Hamilton Square in 1863.The hospital expanded several times turning the east side of Hamilton Park into a jumble of building styles on a non conforming footprint.The building contained approximately 400,000 square feet of floor area.

Proposed Phases of Development

Transform the existing hospital structure located on the east side of Hamilton Park and two nearby parcels - the parking garage on Erie street and the vacant lot located at 210 Ninth Street - into residences, commercial/retail space, and enclosed parking.

The first phase of development should take place in the spring of 2006 on McWilliams Place and will take approximately one year to complete.This phase will include the facad replacement of the brown brick tower, the restoration of the circa 1920's building on the corner of Erie and Ninth Streets, and the construction of a new six story infill building on the corner of McWilliams Place and Ninth Street. In addition, the main building immediately to the south will be razed at this time. When completed, this block will contain approximately 125 residences.

The second phase of the project will be the new construction of approximately 75 and the adaptive reuse of the Nursing School on Eighth Street into appromimately 35 residences. All of the building will contain ground floor commercial space and underground parking. The commercial space contemplated to be located within the project include boutiques and cafes, The Garden Pre-School, a gym/health club and doctors/professional offices.

The Third phase of the project will be the dismantling of the parking garage on Erie Street, and replacing it with a new aesthetically pleasing brick and glass structure that will include indoor parking and approximately 65 residences with ground floor retail. The vacant lot at 210 Ninth Street will see the new construction of a five story residential building compatible with the adjacent structures.

Exeter is also committed to contributing to the rehabilitation and preservation of Hamilton Park, and has begun to refurbish the existing chain link fence that surrounds the Park.


You can find more renderings at http://www.saintfrancisjerseycity.com/

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b89/dojomojo/stfrancis.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/14/91819604_896db3f4fb_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/41/91819608_80218d173c_o.jpg

[macmini]

99 Montgomery a small project but one of my favorite projects under construction in Jersey City. On the corner of Montgomery and Warren it has Curved Glass structure with the Historic Facade still in place.

you can see construction pics @ http://www.emporis.com/en/il/pc/?id=244335&aid=19&sro=1&yr=2005&mt=9"

http://www.libertyrealestate.com/dynamic/images/lf157487_99mont2.jpg

[macmini]

GROVE POINTE

Grove Ponite now has a website their is not much information on the site the full site is still under construction. www.grovepointecondos.com

29 stories
525 residential units and 535 parking spots
* 67 condominiums
* 458 rental apartments

Besides the residential building, the project also calls for developers to re-design the one-block section of Newark Avenue (borders are Grove and Marin) as well as the triangular park area that includes the entrance to the Grove Street PATH station.

The ground floor facade will host 20,000 sq.ft. of retail space. The plans envision streetside cafes with outside tables, trees, planters, bike racks, and decorative lights. The functional backside of the building (on Morgan) will also be landscaped and decoratively lit.

http://image50.webshots.com/150/7/60/48/452276048vkXnqZ_ph.jpg

http://image60.webshots.com/60/7/63/31/452276331XWqksk_ph.jpg

http://image58.webshots.com/58/7/70/79/452277079EARgWr_ph.jpg

[macmini]

Jersey City makes the short list for Jets home office site

http://www.chrisbernardo.info/images/jets.jpgBy JANET FRANKSTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEWARK - The New York Jets are considering five northern New Jersey sites - including Jersey City - for the team's new corporate headquarters and practice facility, including a former Exxon headquarters in Florham Park.

Also in the running: Wood-Ridge, Berkeley Heights and Millburn.

As part of the deal to jointly build a new stadium at the Meadowlands with the New York Giants, the Jets agreed to move their headquarters to the Garden State from Hofstra University on Long Island.

A final decision, made by the team with the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, is expected by March 1.

The authority plans to either purchase 20 acres or enter into a long-term lease for the site, to include a 110,000-square-foot building and one indoor and three outdoor football fields.


The Jets sought land that would be easy to develop within 20 miles of the Meadowlands and Newark Liberty International Airport, yet accessible to Manhattan and near a range of housing, hotels and medical facilities.

Jets president Jay Cross said the team considered more than 40 properties.

The move from Hempstead is expected to generate more than $10 million each year in new taxes, according to the Jets.

George Zoffinger, president and CEO of the sports authority, said his agency will make sure the site makes the most economic sense for New Jersey.

A law approved last month expanded the sports authority's role to buy or lease land for the training facility away from the East Rutherford sports complex where the Giants will continue to practice on a new 20-acre site.

"I'm happy about the Jets possibly coming here," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said in a statement. "Jersey City, with its proximity to New York and all the amenities we can offer, is a great fit for the Jets."

Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for the Jets, said the team hasn't yet determined if it will also develop land surrounding the practice facility.


© 2006 The Jersey Journal

[macmini]

Just Approved

The Jersey City planning board on February 7, 2006 approved K. Hovnanian at 77 Hudson Street.

896 units in two towers
22,000 sf of retail space
901 parking space

http://www.cityofjerseycity.com/cale...7_2006_min.pdf

old plan for the sitehttp://www.77hudson.com/

[macmini]

77 Hudson will be 45 stories each tower the west tower will be rental the east will be condos. The condo tower will be wider like a triangle then the rental tower. The condo will be directly in front of the rental blocking most of the views.

Here is a pic for you the construction at the bottom is A Condos project and the one next to the Power House is the Trump project. It's hard to tell because of the snow but the A Condos project is way ahead of Trump.

http://static.flickr.com/37/100997154_4a30d20547_o.jpg

[macmini]

Journal Square: Harwoods see towers in place of Tawil blights

A family with deep roots in Jersey City has signed a contract to purchase most of the properties on a key block in Journal Square, and is likely to be named the site's designated developer, city officials said yesterday.http://www.chrisbernardo.info/images/22_jsq_demo.jpg

The family-owned firm, led by Scott Harwood, is purchasing all Journal Square properties owned by Ralph Tawil Jr., an investor who owns roughly 80 percent of the block next to the PATH Transportation Center, including the defunct Hotel on the Square.

Having racked up nearly $4 million in building and fire code fines - and in the process of demolishing several of these properties - the New York City-based Tawil is apparently ready to leave town.

Harwood, whose roots in Jersey City stretch back three generations, signed a contract to purchase the Tawil properties in January, the developer and city officials said yesterday.

Harwood's vision for the site: Two mixed-use high-rise towers, which would include apartments, retail stores, parking and, possibly, a hotel.

"There is no reason that Journal Square, which arrived much earlier (in economic importance to the city) than the waterfront, cannot be renewed," said Harwood, who with his son, Scott, and nephew, Brett, owns two Journal Square parking lots, is part-owner of the recently opened State Theater apartment complex.

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy is pleased a hometown developer is taking on the job.

In the past few weeks, Harwood, who wants to start construction next January, has presented his plans for the Square to Healy and commissioners at the city's redevelopment agency.

Chris Fiore, acting interim director of the redevelopment agency, said the Harwoods would likely be named the "designated developer" for the site at the agency's next meeting on March 21.

[macmini]

Trump Upgrades facade

Item #10 changes to building
http://www.cityofjerseycity.com/cale...ry_28_2006.pdf

February 28,2006 Jersey City planning board approved changes to Trump Building.



From: Real Estate Weekly
Title: DeWitt Tishman gets the job at Trump Towers in Jersey.
Publication: Real Estate Weekly
Issue: Sept 28, 2005

With Donald Trump on board, the new owners retained DeWitt Tishman, asking the New York City-based firm to make the design changes necessary to transform the project into a development that reflects the high standards of the Trump Organization.

"This is a very high profile assignment for us," said Peter DeWitt, a company principal. In a few short months, the firm, working with the Trump Organization and Metro Homes, made some design modifications that they believe will make the property unique to the Jersey City waterfront area.

Some of the changes from the original plan include a cast stone facade in place of brick. DeWitt noted that cast stone was used with great success at Trump Place Riverside in Manhattan. In addition, cast stone spandrels with distinctive Art Deco detailing will decorate the space above and below the apartment windows. The windows themselves were changed from double hung to sliders.

In addition, a number of alterations were made to the interior finishes at the Trump Plaza: Jersey City. A key design element retained from the original plan, DeWitt said, was the stepped floor plan of the towers, which provides expansive corner views of Manhattan from most of the nine apartments on each floor. Apartments in the upper reaches of the buildings benefit from panoramic views of the entire region, with premium three-bedroom residences on the top floors utilizing building setbacks as private terraces.

Some of the other noteworthy design elements to be featured at Trump Plaza: Jersey City include: monumental stone piers that define the lobby entrance, a stately seven-story base that mediates between street level and the tower above and rusticated piers that soar the full height of the building to a distinctive crown defined by setbacks and deeply set windows.

[macmini]

HARBORSIDE'S NEW TENANT - Financial firm to bring 300 jobs


Citco Fund Services, a leading investment management company, is leaving Manhattan for Jersey City.
http://www.chrisbernardo.info/images/normal_maccali2.jpeg
Citco executives say they will move as many as 300 employees from their offices on Madison Avenue to Harborside Plaza 10 on the Jersey City waterfront by the end of the year.

"We got an offer for a Grade A building in a great location that is near where all our clients are based," said Jay Peller, managing director for Citco Fund Services. "We'll be moving our back- and middle-office operations there, and some of our technology services. Jersey City is a very good location for us."

The deal continues the growth of the financial industry in Jersey City, which has been holding its own in the battle with downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn for attracting companies looking for relief from skyrocketing rents in Midtown.

In the current buyer's market, the deal is a major coup for American Financial Realty Trust, the Pennsylvania-based real estate investment trust that controls the 70,000 square feet at Harborside Plaza where Citco will move.

"This was a deal for continuous space that we were able to negotiate in two and a half weeks where we could give them one of the best locations on the waterfront," said Michael Weil, vice president of sales at American Financial, which controls 1,100 buildings, totaling roughly 40 million square feet, in the United States.

Citco Fund Services handles the administrative work for more than 1,700 hedge funds. Among its varied services, the company settles trades and sends investors portfolio updates.

Peller said most of Citco's clients in the region are in New York or southern Connecticut. Citco was located across from the World Trade Center until September 2001, then moved to Midtown three months later.

Moving to Jersey City will give the company significant savings on rent. Rents on the Jersey City waterfront are in the $30-to-$35-per-square-foot range, compared with $75 and up in Midtown Manhattan.

"The economics factor into it, but this is the right building in the right location close to the city," Peller said.

© 2006 The Jersey Journal
© 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

[Lecom]

77 Hudson will be 45 stories each tower the west tower will be rental the east will be condos. The condo tower will be wider like a triangle then the rental tower. The condo will be directly in front of the rental blocking most of the views.

Here is a pic for you the construction at the bottom is A Condos project and the one next to the Power House is the Trump project. It's hard to tell because of the snow but the A Condos project is way ahead of Trump.

http://static.flickr.com/37/100997154_4a30d20547_o.jpg
Great location. Downtown Jersey City definitely needs more density.

[macmini]

The new design for the Trump Plaza



New Design vs. Old Design
http://www.metrohomesllc.com/images/trump_pr2.jpghttp://www.metrohomesllc.com/images/trump_pr.jpg

[colemonkee]

The new design's definitely an improvement.

[macmini]

Another giant on Hudson Street

Apartment complex of 901 units to be constructed on same block as state's tallest building

http://images.zwire.com/local/Z/ZWIRE1291/zwire/images/2006/03/story/20060307_234140_1_story.jpg
77 HUDSON ST. – Construction on the 500-foot building
near the Jersey City waterfront is expected to start in
late spring or early summer this year.

Number 77 Hudson St. will soon be another new destination on the Jersey City waterfront. The address once designated for a 32-story office building instead will be occupied by a 48-story, 901-unit luxury twin-tower building.

The Planning Board approved the building for construction at a meeting on Feb. 7.

One tower will contain approximately 420 condominium units with 420 parking spaces and 10,914 square feet of retail space. The tower will be built by nationally known homebuilders K. Hovnanian Companies of Edison.

The other tower will contain 481 rental units with the same number of parking spaces and 10,181 square feet of retail space. That tower will be built by EQR-Urban Renewal of Vienna, Va.

All parking spaces will be in a garage.

The building is being considered for a 20-year tax abatement by the City Council, with the final approval to be granted at their next meeting this Wednesday.

At 500 feet, the building will be the second-largest building on the block - after 30 Hudson St., the state's tallest building at 791 feet.

Construction is expected to start in late spring or early summer this year, with K. Hovnanian and EQR building simultaneously.

Growing up six years later

In April 2000, the Jersey City Planning Board approved a 32-story office tower with 646 parking spaces for 77 Hudson St. The developers were to have been Secaucus-based commercial real estate developers Hartz Mountain Industries, also owners of the property.

But a Hartz Mountain representative said recently that the office market boom that occurred in the late 1990s in Jersey City began to slow down by 2003, and the decision was made not to go ahead with building a new office space.

Architectural renderings of 77 Hudson St. show that entrances for the building will be on Hudson Street for the east tower and Greene Street for the west tower, with the parking garage entrance on Sussex Street.

Doug Fenichel, spokesperson for K. Hovnanian, commented last week on the uniqueness of the project for the firm.

"It's certainly our first skyscraper, so we are very excited," Fenichel said. "Usually we are known for our portfolio of single-family homes, but this project shows our diversity in urban building."

Fenichel did not give details of how much K. Hovnanian's part of the project will cost and could not give the prices because those amounts, as well as the square footage for the condos, are still being determined. K. Hovnanian plans to build 42 studio, 232 one-bedroom, 110 two-bedroom, and 36 three-bedroom condos.

Using the pricing figures of the condos at the near-completed K. Hovnanian at Exchange Place in Paulus Hook, one-bedroom condos could average $450,000 and up, while two-bedroom units could go for at least $650,000.

K. Hovnanian was also the developer of the Droyers Point community, located on Kellogg Street near Route 440.

EQR did not return a call for comment. They are planning to construct 113 studio, 238 one-bedroom and 130 two-bedroom apartments.

EQR is the developer of several luxury apartment complexes in Downtown Jersey City, including Portside Towers on Washington Street, Hudson Pointe on Dudley Street, and The Pier.

Based on their other Jersey City developments, pricing for the EQR apartments could range from $1,775 for a studio apartment at Portside Towers to $6,000 for a three-bedroom, also at Portside.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.


©The Hudson Reporter 2006

[macmini]

SQUARE ZEAL! Plan calls for towers to rise from the rubble

http://www.chrisbernardo.info/images/square_towers.jpg

HIGH HOPES FOR SQUARE EYESORE

By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Two glassy high-rise towers with apartments, retail stores, three levels of underground parking, and possibly a hotel.

It's all coming to Journal Square and Harwood Properties, a company with deep roots in Jersey City, is going to make it happen, city officials announced last week.

Last month, Harwood Properties signed a contract to purchase almost every property on the block next to the Journal Square Transportation Center, including the defunct Hotel-on-the-Square building, the hopeful developer and city officials said.

The third-generation family-run firm - which already owns the Ramp Garage behind the Loew's Jersey Theater, another parking lot on Sip Avenue and is part-owner of the recently opened State Theater apartment complex - is buying out Ralph Tawil Jr., a New York City investor who has racked up nearly $4 million in fines on his Journal Square holdings. All of Tawil's buildings are slated for demolition.

City officials hailed the purchase contract and the proposed plans as the biggest step forward to date toward the rebirth of the once storied square.

"This comes after two decades of eyesore and waste," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said. "Obviously the Harwoods have a long history in the city and in Journal Square in particular."

Lowell Harwood - a Lincoln High graduate and managing partner of the company - declined to say how much his firm is paying for the properties, citing a confidentiality agreement with Tawil.


However, he said he's already spent a hefty sum on the first phase of an environmental study, drillings to find out how much rock is on site, and renderings of the finished product.

Chris Fiore, interim director of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, said the limited partnership entity formed by the Harwoods to develop the site, Journal Square Development LLC, is likely to be named "designated developer" for the site at the agency's meeting on March 21.

Once that is accomplished, city officials and Harwood would negotiate the details of the plan, including the height of the towers, and how many apartments they will contain, Fiore said. A market study would help determine the feasibility of a hotel, Harwood said.

It's official: Vote names Square developer
Thursday, March 09, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday night, the seven-member Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, as expected, named a company controlled by the Harwood family of Jersey City to be the designated developer for a key block of Journal Square.

The Journal Square Development LLC, a creation of Harwood Properties, proposes to build two high-rise towers with apartments, retail stores, underground parking, and possibly a hotel on the block next to the PATH Transportation Center.

"I feel as though people do care," said Lowell Harwood, managing partner of Harwood Properties. "Now I'm looking forward to keeping the timetable going and accelerating the redevelopment and plan, which is our next step."

Harwood hopes to deal with zoning changes needed for the proposed development and have a site plan drawn up in the next 30 days, and wants to begin construction by January, he said.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy attended Tuesday night's meeting to emphasize the city's commitment to the redevelopment of the once storied square.

[westcoastperspective]

Sweet! Trump's project needs another re-do. BORING!

[macmini]

Sweet! Trump's project needs another re-do. BORING!

Of course you think it's BORING because ever thing out of Sacramento is so cutting edge!!

[westcoastperspective]

Of course you think it's BORING because ever thing out of Sacramento is so cutting edge!!

Just a couple Libeskind's

http://img348.imageshack.us/img348/4442/aura172qe8bc.jpg

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5551/building3po.jpg

And this which trumps Trump IMO

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2020/301towers111bw8aa.jpg

I didn't post to start a city vs city fight- I just think the Trump design is mediocre. the Harwood project is awesome.

[macmini]

I didn't post to start a city vs city fight- I just think the Trump design is mediocre. the Harwood project is awesome.


Sorry westcoastperspective I was not trying to start a fight I was just being a smarta**. They should have keep the originally design when it was Harborside and it was art deco. Yes even the new design is boring but it's better then the first which look like that god-awful Trump Place Riverside in Manhattan.

[macmini]

Jersey City woos Jets over lunch

Saturday, March 11, 2006
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Local officials yesterday put on the last-minute rush to attract the New York Jets to Jersey City during a posh luncheon stocked with wine, fresh salmon, and plenty of political cheerleading.

"This is a great opportunity for Jersey City, and I can't think of another city in this state that can offer what we can offer," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy told a crowd of nearly 50 politicians, developers and others gathered at the Liberty House restaurant in Liberty State Park.

Bart Oates, a former New York Giants lineman who represents the Jets in their real estate transactions, showed the city's push is paying off because "Jersey City is in the top half of the five cities" still vying for the deal.

Jersey City has proposed the Jets build the training camp on a 28-acre site along Caven Point Avenue - on the waterfront in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. A conceptual site plan calls for four practice fields, a 150,000-square-foot main building, an auditorium and parking for more than 300 cars.

If the Jets choose the site, they would displace fields now used for soccer, softball and baseball, but the Jets would help to replace them with fields elsewhere in the city, city officials have said. Cochrane Stadium would remain in the city's possession.

"If the city is not greener, then the deal is not going to be done," said Carl Czaplicki, Healy's chief of staff and the city's lead negotiator in the deal.

Oates said that a decision is coming within two weeks, and the Jets hope to put shovels in the ground by the summer, with an expected opening date of August 2007.

The luncheon featured a six-minute video presentation that highlighted Jersey City's transformation from a blue-collar industrial city into "New York's sixth borough." The video included snippets from a number of high-profile politicians and developers, including Gov. Jon Corzine, Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton.

"Mayor Healy, I am proud to be in Jersey City," Clinton announced on the video, pulled from the former president's visit during last year's gubernatorial election campaign.

Jamie LeFrak, one of a number of developers present, said the proposed deal's biggest perks would be the marketing and promotion it would bring to the city.

"It would attract a lot of media attention, and it will help break some people's old views of Jersey City," said LeFrak.

[LostInTheZone]

i still say, jersey city and hoboken are more a part of new york than staten island is. wanna trade?

[macmini]

AvalonBay Communities Announces Land Sale

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2006--AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE/PCX:AVB) announced today the sale of a 0.87-acre land parcel located in Jersey City, New Jersey for a gross sales price of $15.0 million. The Company purchased the parcel in 1997 in connection with the development of The Tower at Avalon Cove, a 269-apartment home community completed by the Company in 1999 and sold in December 2005. The buyer of the land parcel intends to pursue condominium development on the site, although it is not currently entitled for this use.

The sale of this land parcel is expected to result in a gain in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles of approximately $13.2 million. The gain on land sale will add $0.175 to the Company's first quarter 2006 Earnings per Share ("EPS") and Funds from Operations ("FFO") per share. The Company generally does not project land sales when providing its financial outlook; accordingly, the Company's first quarter 2006 financial outlook for EPS of $1.25 to $1.30 and FFO per share of $0.93 to $0.97, provided on January 26, 2006, did not include the gain on sale from this land parcel.

[macmini]

New Renderings for 77 Hudson

Architect Dennis Allain
http://www.dennisallain.com/node/17

http://www.dennisallain.com/files/77hudson-2006.jpg

[James Bond Agent 007]

^
Wow, I really like that design!

[macmini]

PICK 6

By Dakota Smith

March 25, 2006 -- FROM AFFORDABLE TO ULTRA-LUXE, WE GIVE YOU THE NEW HOTNESS
The blitz of new development in the city continues, with developers adding even more outlandish perks to buildings - Austrian pine trees, anyone? - or heading to up-and-coming neighborhoods.

Our guide to the latest crop of buildings includes pads that are distinctive either for location, price or amenities.

Happy home hunting in 2006.

101 WARREN TriBeCa

Buyers at 101 Warren, a 228-unit luxury residence opening in TriBeCa, can choose from five different residential designs: loft-style, townhouse, sky home, rooftop home and duplex penthouse. All apartments will have 10- to 12-foot ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The building will also house a fifth-floor elevated atrium - a forest of 101 imported Austrian pines trees. Additionally, the complex - which is being marketed as the Time Warner Center for the downtown set - will be attached to 170,000 square feet of retail space, with a Whole Foods already planned for the building.

Prices range from $1.2 million for a 923-square-foot one-bedroom to $13 million for a 4,145-square-foot penthouse. The sales office opened earlier this month. www.101warren.com

WALDO LOFTS Jersey City

The expansion of Jersey City's Powerhouse Arts Center continues with the opening of Waldo Lofts, a conversion of a 12-story brick warehouse building at 159 Second St. The building's 82 units range from 700-square-feet studios to 2,400-square-feet duplex penthouses with spiral staircases; 10-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows give units a loft-like feel. Our favorite perk: washer/ dryers in every unit.

Prices at Waldo Lofts range from $390,000 to $1.5 million, not counting a handful of units being sold at below market price for artists who meet income qualifications. The sales office opened last month.

www.waldolofts.com

999 Bushwick

Yup, Bushwick is the new Harlem. Or the new Red Hook. Whatever - it's cheap! The first of five new developments planned for this 'hood, 999 - a six-story, 18-unit building at 999 Willoughby St. - will offer units priced from $289,000 for a 690-square-foot one-bedroom to $500,000 for a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom with a 500-square-foot terrace. The prices are about $100 less a square foot than similar new units in East Williamsburg, according to Corcoran Group vice president Tom Le. Amenities include indoor parking and a gym. Sales begin in November.

www.corcoran.com

SKY HOUSE Madison Square

Want to live in the clouds? Purchase the 2,817-square-foot penthouse on the top floor of the Sky House, a 55-story condo building opening at 11 E. 29th St., near Madison Square Park. One of the tallest new buildings to open for sales this year, the 139-unit Sky House will offer just three units per floor, giving buyers memorable views of both the East and Hudson Rivers.

Prices are expected to start at $1,250 a square foot, according to David Perry, director of sales at the Clarrett Group, developer of the Sky House. Concierge service, gym, and a playroom are among the building's amenities. The sales office opens in April.

www.skyhouse condo.com

101 WEST END AVE. Upper West Side

Targeting the upscale stroller set, 10 West End Ave., a 33-story, 173-unit condominium located between West 59th and West 60th streets, opens for sales in May. More than half of the units in the development, being billed as a family-friendly building with a children's activity center, are two-, three- and four-bedrooms.

All residences have floor-to-ceiling windows (some as high as 11 feet), ensuring buyers views of either the Hudson River or Midtown.

Designer Nick Dine's interior finishes include Siberian marble countertops and walnut cabinetry in the bathrooms, and granite countertops with white-oak and etched-glass cabinets in the stainless-steel kitchens. Lucky residents at 10 West End Ave. also get valet parking, as well as concierge service, a playroom and a gym, complete with a glass-enclosed 50-foot pool.

Prices are expected to start at $750,000 for a 750-square-foot one-bedroom and top out at $4.5 million for a 2,600-square-foot four-bedroom. www.10wea.com

THE CALEDONIA Meatpacking District

Indulgent services can certainly be found at the Caledonia, a 190-unit building opening at 450 W. 17th St. Set at the tip of the glam Meatpacking District (steps from Del Posto and Morimoto) and near the new High Line Park, the Caledonia will offer an Equinox gym and spa, indoor parking, a library, a meditation garden, a sun deck and outdoor terrace, a pet spa and a children's playroom.

Interior finishes by designer Clodagh (pictured) include bamboo wood flooring throughout the units, while bathrooms come with quartzite slab countertops and stone-tile flooring. The lobby will have a cascading water feature and a bamboo garden.

Prices, as well as unit sizes, are still being determined for the Caledonia, a development from the Related Companies (whose properties include the Time Warner Center and who recently purchased Equinox). The building opens for sales in April.

www.thecaledonia.com

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Residential projects dominate landscape

Monday, April 17, 2006

By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City's office market boom has hit a wall, making way for a surging housing market that will change the face of the city's Downtown for decades to come, city officials and experts say.

While the 1980s and 1990s saw financial companies such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase transform Jersey City's shores into the Gold Coast, today's market is dominated by housing giants like Toll Brothers, K. Hovnanian and Donald Trump.

More than 15,000 residential units are expected to flood the Downtown area over the next several years, putting pressure on municipal services, according to the city's Division of Planning. Though more than seven million square feet of office space was developed from 2000 to 2005, planning officials say the current office market is very sluggish and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

"There are currently no office projects under construction, and none planned," says a planning report authored by Planning Director Robert Cotter earlier this year. Those two opposite trends have prompted at least one expert to declare that "the job growth era is over in Jersey City."

From 1992 to 2000, the state created 243,000 high-paying office jobs, driven by Jersey City's growth on the waterfront, says James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

But since 2000, there has been a net loss across the state, thanks to increases in the state income tax and other business taxes, said Hughes.

"New Jersey has become an unfriendly place to do business," Hughes said.

The most recent sign of this trend is 77 Hudson St., where Hartz Mountain Industries just scrapped plans to build a 32-story office tower because the

company believed that Jersey City cannot absorb the new space.

The company sold the land for $65 million to K. Hovnanian, which now plans to build two 48-story towers, with more than 1,300 condo and rental units combined.

City officials and experts say Manhattan is driving the housing trend, as it previously did with the growth of the office space market in Jersey City.

The high costs of buying a home and living in Manhattan, combined with the market demand for luxury condos in the region, has created such high demand for housing in less costly Jersey City.

"If everything that is being constructed were built tomorrow, we still would still not satisfy the housing demand," said Downtown city Councilman Steven Fulop, who also works in the financial industry.

Mega mogul Donald Trump summed up the city's housing surge when he visited the waterfront last year to announce his $415 million project that will feature the Garden State's two largest residential towers, at 55 and 50 stories - Trump Plaza Jersey City

"I am the largest developer in Manhattan, and I am coming to Jersey City. So a lot of people come the other way, and I am coming this way, and I am pretty good at predicting trends, so let's hope that's a trend," Trump said.

And when the Athena Group and Golden Tree InSite Partners announced a $110 million condo project on the Hudson waterfront in October of last year, the president and CEO of the Athena Group said "Jersey City is in the midst of a phenomenal housing boom."

With the boom in residents come issues that need to be addressed, says Fulop.

"We need to continue to hire more police officers, but we need to make sure we're hiring more than we are retiring," said Fulop.

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Project Updates

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32-story 'Aqua' approved

Planning Board also OKs affordable housing, other major projects
The Planning Board gave early approval Tuesday for several site plans for large-scale projects, but the developers will have to return to the board later for the final go-ahead. The projects include the 32-story "Aqua" residential tower, part of the Newport section of town.

There will also be a 16-story building on Luis Marin Boulevard, a 12-story building encompassing Oakland and Hoboken avenues and Washburn Street, and a five-story affordable housing complex on Martin Luther King Drive

The Aqua

The 32-story Aqua will have 363 residential units, 15,348 square feet of retail, and 291 parking spaces. There will be 20 studio apartments, 169 one-bedrooms, 161 two-bedrooms, and 13 three-bedrooms. The entire space will be 490,063 square feet.

The project will be built by Newport Associates Development Company as part of Newport's commitment to building on the Northeast Quadrant near the Jersey City-Hoboken border.

Liberty Harbor North


A 16-story building will be built within the massive Liberty Harbor North Redevelopment Area on Luis Marin Boulevard, near Grand Street and Jersey Avenue.

The project includes transforming 80 acres of vacant land into an estimated 6,500 units of market-rate housing, one million square feet of hotel space, 750,000 square feet of retail space, and 4.5 million square feet of office space.

Former North Bergen Mayor and Jersey City-based businessman Peter Mocco is the developer of the entire area. Construction has already begun and will be completed by next year.

The building will encompass a total of over 891,000 square feet. There will be 498 residential units with 321 one-bedroom, 163 two-bedroom, and 14 three-bedroom apartments.

There will also be over 26,000 square feet of retail and a garage with 454 parking spaces.

The partners in the venture are Hoboken-based developers Michael and David Barry along with developer Murray Kushner.

Oakland and Washburn avenues project


A 12-story residential building, to be built next year, will include 150 units and 161 parking spaces. It will be a short walking distance from the Hudson County Administration Building and Courthouse.

This is one of two projects being developed by local developer Tony Deluco; the other is a 92-unit building located across the street from the 12-story project.

Ten studio, 60 one-bedroom, and 80 two-bedroom apartments and a two-level parking garage were proposed.

Among those endorsing the project at the Planning Board meeting was Ward C City Councilman Steve Lipski, who said that this project would spur the "renaissance" of the Journal Square and surrounding areas.

After presenting the project, Deluco said he would not pursue any abatements. A tax abatement is an agreement to exempt a developer from regular, fluctuating property taxes. There is usually a separate revenue deal for the developer to pay money to the city over 20 or 30 years.

The city benefits from abatements because the resulting Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) money goes straight to the city rather than being split among the city, the county, and the schools.

Webb Apartments - Affordable housing

A five-story housing complex to be built on Martin Luther King Drive, called the Webb Apartments, will include 40 units of affordable housing.

The project will have no parking because it will be located near the Martin Luther King Drive Light Rail Station.

The project is the brainchild of local resident Lavern Webb Washington, who teamed up with the New York-based architectural firm Genesis Partners. Washington said the project is "sorely needed" in a time of too many luxury apartments.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com


©The Hudson Reporter 2006

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Project Updates


Columbus Tower
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700 Grove

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Grove Pointe

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Gulls Cove

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Liberty Harbor North

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Liberty Terrace

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Montgomery Greene

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Shore Club

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Trump Plaza

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77 Hudson Street
Jersey City, New Jersey


DESCRIPTION
Providing Preconstruction services for the planned construction of two 50-story residential buildings with retail space, totaling 25,000 s.f. on the waterfront in Jersey City, New Jersey. One of the buildings will house condominium units and the second will house rental units. Both buildings will contain retail and parking accommodations. Both condominium and rental units will contain high-end finishes with floor to ceiling glass, wood flooring or wall to wall carpeting, cultured marble vanity tops, contemporary appliances and wood cabinetry. The complex will contain a 2,500 s.f. state of the art fitness center, theater room and business center. The condominium building will allow for a 420-car parking garage with a car wash, the rental building will include a 360-car garage and an additional 13 spaces for retail. The shared amenity space at the terrace level will contain a grilling area, outdoor bar and pool, jogging path, putting green and volley ball and bocce ball courts.


VOLUME
$280,000,000 Construction


COMPLETION DATE
July, 2009 Anticipated Construction Date


OWNER
Equity Residential
c/o Prospect Towers
300 Prospect Avenue
Hackensack, New Jersey 07601

K. Hovnanian
110 Filedcrest Avenue
CN 7825
Edison, New Jersey 08818


ARCHITECT
Cetra/Ruddy Incorporated
584 Broadway
Suite 401
New York, New York 10012

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Downtown Construction Boom

Tris Mccall (Originally published in Discover Your Neighborhood)
April 19, 2006

The rough song of the bulldozers, pile-drivers, and cranes – that’s the soundtrack for life in Downtown Jersey City. Wherever you go, out by the glass towers of the waterfront, behind the new entrance to the Grove Street PATH Station, in the warehouse district, across the street from Victory Hall, you’ll encounter construction. On the closed stretches of Washington Avenue by the Powerhouse, the trucks of the work crews line halfway to Christopher Columbus; across Marin, teams of hard-hatted construction workers lay the foundation for the western most of two new towers that will soon flank the Boulevard.

There will be retail space available on the ground floor of these buildings. But like almost all of the recent construction in Jersey City, these are primarily residential projects. Over the next few years, the largest municipality in Hudson County is poised to grow considerably larger. Thousands of new condominium and rental units are scheduled to become available for sale or lease. The Downtown Ward – already the largest in the city – will likely welcome an entire small suburb’s worth of growth. Many of these new homes and apartments are in luxury hi-rises and developments priced at more than $600 per square foot. We all know that Jersey City is in the midst of an unprecedented real estate boom. But is interest in our town really this fevered?

“Don’t look at it from a Jersey City perspective,” suggests Jamie LeFrak, co-developer of Newport. “We’re part of the greater New York City market. And if you look at the housing stock in that market – the overall housing stock – you’d compare it to the amount of new development you’re seeing here, and you’d pretty much shrug. A couple thousand new units? Add that to the other twenty million on the other side of the river.”

The LeFrak organization is unafraid to keep adding. The Shore Club (580 Washington Blvd.), a luxury condominium crown atop the mostly-rental 600-acre Newport development, is a multi-staged project that has already drawn intense interest from potential buyers. Since opening its sales office in September, 211 of the 214 available units have already sold – many of them for more than half a million dollars. What’s perhaps surprising is that LeFrak was able to move these high-priced condominiums without bothering to advertise them. The interest in Left Coast property is so heated that word-of-mouth and internet discussion groups are generally enough to fill waterfront towers with new tenants and owners.

“What people don’t necessarily realize,” continues LeFrak, “is that New York City has a housing shortage, and that’s probably been true since the 1940s. Any housing that gets added to the area helps with catching up with the demand created by the shortage. It’s more than likely that Jersey City has been springing up to relieve that demand for NYC housing. After all, people keep showing up in New York City, and they all need roofs over their heads.”

It was once believed that the Jersey City housing market was entirely skyline-driven, and thus it was mandatory to locate all new towers at the lip of the Hudson River, or with unobstructed views of the Statue of Liberty. But Manhattan builders have begun to grasp the advantages and conveniences of life in Jersey City, or perhaps they’ve just discovered faith in Hudson County as an emerging market in its own right. With almost all of the Downtown waterfront currently occupied, developers have stepped back a few blocks from the eastern edge of New Jersey and purchased lots on Washington Avenue, Greene Street, and Marin Boulevard. These towers will be tall enough to offer panoramic views of New York City – at least from the higher floors – as their press releases make clear. But they’ve been just as keen on marketing their proximity to quick public transit and the renascent Downtown commercial district.

The Athena Group, a real estate developer headquartered in Manhattan, is co-developing the lot at Washington and First bordered on its south and west sides by the Hudson-Bergen light rail tracks. While there’s nothing but rubble on the site now, soon the gleaming-glass and terraced complex called “A” (sales office at 97 Hudson in Hoboken) will rise from the abandoned lot. Closer to completion is Montgomery-Greene (sales office at 66 York Street), a partnership between Wall Township’s KOR Companies and Manhattan-based Time Equities. The concrete-and-steel frame that now looms over the Exchange Place PATH Station will shortly become a nineteen-story tower featuring 113 elaborately-appointed condominiums. Perhaps most famously, business-mogul-turned-TV-star Donald Trump has committed to bringing Trump Plaza Jersey City (Washington and First) to the vacant lot south of the Powerhouse. This mammoth two-tower 862-unit project is also a partnership between a New York financier and Jersey developer Metro Homes LLC.

Like most other waterfront towers, these will bear the hallmark of New York architectural style: slimness, verticality, plate glass frontage, hi-rise elegance, a certain corporate feel. But the waterfront is zoned for skyscraping projects. Once all the parcels of land east of Marin Boulevard are occupied, developers will have to turn further inland, where most neighborhoods have protected their block grid through historical preservation ordinances. The future of Downtown development may not be the Shore Club, but instead LeFrak’s small-scale projects west of Marin Boulevard and the Newport shopping mall.

In picturesque Hamilton Park, noted for its array of well-preserved nineteenth-century brownstones, the LeFrak Organization has erected two smaller rental properties meant to echo the architectural scale of the neighborhood. The Roosevelt (10th and Manila), the second and smaller of the buildings, filled almost immediately once units were made available. “As we did during the construction of the Abraham Lincoln – the rental property right next to The Roosevelt – we tried to evoke colonial 1910 apartment-building style”, offers LeFrak. “I’m glad we got a second shot at it, because I think we got it right to a greater extent this time.”

Although it may not appear so to a casual visitor or to a New Yorker scanning our skyline from the West Side Highway, hi-rise waterfront development in Jersey City has always been accompanied by a parallel interest in the refurbishment and preservation of our pre-existing housing stock. Many of the city’s most notable homegrown developers – Liberty Harbor’s Jeff Zak and Peter Mocco, for instance – began their real estate ventures with restoration projects. Brothers Paul and Eric Silverman of Exeter Properties – best known for their breathtaking restoration and adaptive re-use of the Majestic Theatre (228 Montgomery Street) – are extending their track record of historically sensitive development with two ambitious developments elsewhere in Hamilton Park. Exeter has taken pains to give the residences at The Schroeder Lofts (234 Tenth Street) an eco-friendly design. Closer to the park, the nascent development at the old St. Francis Medical Center (25 McWilliams) promises to bring a pedestrian-friendly strip of boutique retail to the historic neighborhood.

“We’ll be restoring the park facing on the west side of the building,” explains Eric Silverman, “There’ll be a market and a dry cleaner, and we envision a health club and a nursery school. We’re going to remove the bricks in the windows, and create a new façade. As always, the plan will be to create a structure that’s a destination, a visual focal point – one that blends in with neighboring buildings and encourages and enriches the pedestrian experience for everybody in the area.”

“We haven’t always done small-scale stuff, but we have always done good stuff”, continues brother Paul. “We generally have picked projects that nobody else wanted, but where we’ve seen possibilities for restoration and the productive expansion of a neighborhood.” Exeter’s immediate future plans include a further extension of their transformation of Grove and Montgomery Streets. Sketches of their mixed-use development at the southeast corner of the intersection – which will take the place of the disused Sim’s Carpet Building – suggest that the building will echo architectural features of both the Majestic Theatre and City Hall. Exeter’s work on Grove Street demonstrates how property developers can alter the feel of a streetscape, knit together city blocks, and augment the visual coherence and ambient pleasure of an urban Downtown. The Silverman brothers’ long experience restoring property in Jersey City and their investment in the community has deepened their understanding of the city’s needs. “We spend a lot of time getting to know these neighborhoods. We attend the organization meetings – Van Vorst Park Association, Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association – and we listen to what gets said. We do business here, too.”

As residential development expands westward, away from the waterfront, dialogue between neighborhood groups and builders will become increasingly vital. Schenkman-Kushner, creator of the Grove Pointe (100 Newark Avenue) mixed-use complex, altered the design of their structure after a protracted negotiation with Jersey City smart-growth activists. “We needed some additional density to make the numbers add up”, states Jeff Persky, a principal at Schenkman-Kushner and one of the project’s co-developers. “We got together with neighborhood leaders, and agreed to put a park by the PATH station. In return, they agreed to the density changes.”

The Harsimus Cove Association and the Downtown Coalition of Neighborhood Associations recommended that Grove Point be stepped back from the street to create a more human scale for pedestrians. They also requested that the builders use materials compatible with the brick-and-mortar Harsimus aesthetic. Rather than resenting these suggestions, Persky and Schenkman-Kushner incorporated them into the redesign of Grove Pointe. “I actually appreciated their input,” says the developer, “and I believe the final project was better than what we originally proposed. We were able to take their ideas and implement them in a way that was mutually satisfactory. I was very appreciative of the time they spent, their knowledge of the neighborhood, and their passion for Jersey City. It ended up being a great team effort.”

If Grove Pointe and the redevelopment of the PATH station was a cordial negotiation, the foundation of the Powerhouse Arts District was a full-bore diplomatic struggle. The debate over whether or not the municipal government should dedicate the Warehouse District to arts-related enterprise lasted for more than a decade, and drew in activists, politicians, journalists, developers, historians, builders, and rubberneckers attracted to an acrimonious argument. When Acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith signed the PAD ordinance last autumn, the battle reached a tenuous equilibrium. Under that ordinance, all new development in the district must conform to the regulations specified in the city law; residential loft space must accommodate the needs of working artists, and a small percentage of all units must be set aside for moderate-income arts professionals.

So far, those who’d predicted that these restrictions would stay the hand of developers have been proven resoundingly incorrect. The PAD is redeveloping at a healthy pace – and arts-related businesses are moving in. Waldo Lofts (159 Second Street), slated to open in the winter of 2006, will feature huge hallways, hoist beams on the ceilings, and copious natural light in its 82 condominium units. Two blocks south, the Caulfield Brothers will be bringing a 13,000 square foot black box theater to its development at 126 Morgan Street. Rental lofts at 150 Bay Street and condominiums at 311 Washington Street are currently under construction and, like other developments in the district, both have reserved lofts that will be distributed by lottery to artists that have registered with the municipal government. Greentree Construction, co-developer of the Schroeder Lofts, is working on two buildings in the PAD – and 140 Bay Street has become the first of the former warehouses to open appropriate ground-floor art space.

“We’ve just had the first opening at our brand new art gallery,” boasts Greentree developer Vince Wilt. “Right now, it’s open by appointment. But we have brought in a local artist to take charge of it. There’s always reason to worry when you’re developing property, especially in something like an arts district. But I like where we are at the moment.”

Ten blocks south, in Paulus Hook, a quieter negotiation between activists, preservationists, and the high priests of the profit motive has been taking place. There, among the historic townhouses and riverfront walkways, residential construction has been unceasing ever since the commercial property boom of the late Nineties threw up majestic office towers east of Hudson Street. A few of the condominium developments along the northern edge of the Morris and Essex basin, such as the deluxe Liberty Terrace (25 Hudson Street), do attempt to capture some of the grandeur of the waterfront office towers. But most projects in Paulus Hook attempt to blend into the neighborhood, mimicking the rhythms and characteristics of the three-story nineteenth-century Italianate and Greek Revival architecture with wrought-iron, brickface, and antique fenestrations. Essex Commons (66 Essex Street) and the Grandview (93 Greene Street) aren’t brownstones, but they do their best to disguise that; the multi-unit buildings seem like natural extensions of these elegant blocks.

Developer Jeff Zak is a Paulus Hook native, and he’s brought some of the qualities of his historic neighborhood to an elaborate plan for an 80-acre parcel of land on the south side of Grand Street. Liberty Harbor North (333 Grand Street) is easily the most audacious project under development in Jersey City, and possibly one of the most remarkable in the entire country. Rather than developing a single building or an enclave, Zak and partner Peter Mocco are aiming to create an entire neighborhood – a seven-street, tightly constructed mixed-income and mixed-use community modeled on the historic districts that provide Downtown with so much of its unique character.

Liberty Harbor North will be developed in accordance with the principles of New Urbanism, a planning doctrine emphasizing walkability, architectural variety, interconnectivity, and human scale. “What it really is, is anti-suburbanism,” explains Zak. “New urbanists copy traditional urban patterns – ones that are proven facilitators of community.” The dimensions of the seven new city blocks planned for Liberty Harbor North are equivalent to those in Paulus Hook and Van Vorst Park. As befits a development founded on a belief in the efficacy of mass transit, the light rail will run down the middle of a central boulevard.

Never ones to cut corners, Zak and Mocco have brought in urban planner Andres Duany to oversee the development. Duany, one of the founders of the New Urbanism movement, is perhaps the most theoretically rigorous and conceptually sophisticated urban designer in the world. “(JC Planning chief) Bob Cotter recommended him to us in a fit of genius. We’d had the site for several years. The initial proposal featured large towers surrounded by car parks. It was cold and bleak. Everybody was stalled during the recession, and during that time, we saw how outdated the older plan had become.”

The new plan, according to Zak, involves targeting as many demographics as possible. Development will intensify and become denser toward the Morris and Essex basin; to the north, Liberty Harbor promises something for everybody. “We have plans for spaces for students, lofts for artists, for empty-nesters. We’re doing retail. When the market is there for office space, we’ll have room for that, too.” And when will this ambitious plan be realized? “At best, it’s a ten-year project”, confesses Zak, “and at the worst, it takes us twenty years.” But the developer goes on to explain how such flexibility is actually an asset. “We can react to the market absorption. If we’d built a gigantic tower, and it didn’t fill up, we’d be sitting on stories of unused space. But this way, we can build a hundred units at a time, and take a series of small bites. Eventually, we’re going to get there – to that total New Urbanist dream”.

While the Liberty Harbor North project might be the most elaborate local expression of that vision, elements of smart growth theory are apparent throughout Jersey City. Infill and adaptive reuse – the retrofitting of disused buildings to accommodate new projects – have become widely adopted techniques for jump-starting the rehabilitation of neighborhoods. On the crest of the palisade, The Beacon (50 Baldwin Avenue) is a 315-unit retooling of the former Jersey City Medical Center on Montgomery Street. The art deco design of the massive structure and the quirky dimensions of many of the apartments might bother some who demand uniformity and contemporary style, but the structure is bound to radiate personality to anybody with a little imagination.

In Lafayette, the rapidly redeveloping neighborhood just southwest of the Downtown (and one short stop away from Jersey Avenue on the light rail), adaptive reuse projects are transforming Communipaw Avenue and Monitor Street. At The Foundry at Liberty State Park (300 Communipaw), developers are rapidly converting a typesetting factory constructed in 1904 into a modern condominium complex. Around the corner, The Independent (125 Monitor Street) renovation will contribute another 163 units to the region’s sudden growth, and the spectacular, disused Whitlock Mills cordage factory will soon be reborn as a residence and retail center. Still further south, a world-class golf course and a massive condominium tower will eventually fill the open space between the southern terminus of Liberty State Park and the still-growing Port Liberté enclave.

And what of that perennial bugaboo: the property-price bubble? Many of the developers we spoke to confessed to some mild trepidation, and almost all expected the Hudson County property boom to slow. But even those who had their doubts about the stability of the national real estate market were still bullish about Jersey City. “The average income along the waterfront is now just as high as it is in Short Hills,” testifies Dan Frohwirth, chief of the city Economic Development Corporation. “And Governor Corzine is now saying that he wants development fast-tracking in the cities. With gasoline prices as high as they now are, we’ll probably see more and more people from the suburbs thinking about returning to urban centers. Remember that New Jersey is virtually built out, and the cache of Jersey City continues to increase. We haven’t seen the end of this yet.”

[macmini]

In the Region | New Jersey
Desperately Seeking Artists

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Dith Pran/The New York Times

The Waldo Lofts building in Jersey City includes warehouselike amenities. James F. Caulfield Jr., left, one of the developers, says the building appeals to artists and people who like to live near them.

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: May 7, 2006

JERSEY CITY
WHAT comes first — the artists, or the funky warehouse-type buildings with big open spaces and lots of light? It is the buildings, of course. Everybody knows that artists find good buildings; buildings do not come looking for them.

In Orange, though, where the city and a nonprofit developer want to create an arts district, they are starting with industrial buildings and hoping draw artists. About 30 big old empty factories and warehouses straddling the city border are ripe for conversion into lofts and studios.

And here in Jersey City, the footprint of the old warehouse district is the site of the Powerhouse Arts District, an eight-block area being redeveloped as a live-work community for artists that has about 140 structures available for conversion.

A few smaller buildings in the Powerhouse district have already been rehabbed and are starting to open for occupancy or creative pursuits. A handful of others are being worked on, and developers are fighting over the rights to renovate dozens more. The builders are promising city planners and arts agencies that they will try their best to instill new life into old structures without denuding them of their vintage industrial charm.

And in one case, a developer is instilling classic industrial features into a brand-new building in order to cater to artists. "Maybe sometimes a building does come looking for them," said James F. Caulfield Jr., one of two brothers who run Fields Development Group, which is constructing the complex.

The project, called Waldo Lofts, is a 12-story, 82-unit condominium building at 159 Second Street scheduled to open in September. Mr. Caulfield said he takes it as a compliment that people walking by comment on the lovely restoration.

The Waldo is specifically designed with the industrial amenities that artists prize — tall ceilings, tall windows, hoist beams for lifting large artwork or heavy materials, shop sinks for washing paintbrushes — and it includes cutting-edge kitchen appliances and free wireless hookup.

The combination has already proved attractive, Mr. Caulfield noted, not just to artists, but also to people who like to live alongside them.

"There is a niche of people who can afford the market rate, and who want this type of lifestyle," he said.

In addition to the amenities tailored to artists, a patio will be set up on a loading dock that will extend out to the sidewalk, Mr. Caulfield said. He said that he and his brother, Robert, envision it as a place for residents to "sit, read a book, play the guitar and soak up street activity."

Regulations require that a certain number of the units in every arts district building be made available at below-market prices — in this case $250,000 to $350,000 — to artists certified by the city's Arts Commission. All seven such units at Waldo Lofts have been sold; about half of the other 75 units have been sold for $300,000 to $700,000, all to people who are not certified by the Arts Commission.

Gary W. Heinz, 33, is among the buyers who are not artists. He recently quit his job on Wall Street to start GWH Ventures, which he describes as a "preservation-oriented real estate development company." He plans to set up a home office in his Waldo Lofts apartment.

"Waldo Lofts is new construction," he said, "but it still retains character. That's very appealing to me." Mr. Heinz said the idea of buying in the Jersey City arts district as it begins to flower was also appealing.

"It's like buying into TriBeCa when it was starting to happen as a place for artists, and getting in on the excitement of that," said Mr. Heinz, who currently rents an apartment in Jersey City.

Jersey City already has the greatest concentration of artists living within its boundaries of any municipality in New Jersey, according to a study by the Urban Land Institute. The Powerhouse neighborhood, named for a gorgeous but decrepit turn-of-the-century power plant building that is a candidate for restoration, has a particular history with artists and their admirers.

Even before the idea of a formal arts district surfaced about a decade ago, many artists found havens in the gritty warehouse district at the edge of Jersey City's downtown. A group called ProArts has held an annual tour there for years, putting works on display in vacant buildings.

In Orange, the development has centered on the old industrial area too. The Valley Arts District is planned for the neighborhood straddling the city's border with West Orange. Though that area has no history with artists, developers and city officials are certain that they will flock to a neighborhood of converted factory buildings — and that people who are "birds of a feather" with the artists will, too.

Patrick Morrissy of Hands, a nonprofit development company that has been working to revitalize neighborhoods in Orange and East Orange for a dozen years, said plans call for creating 80 to 100 live-work spaces for artists that will remain moderately priced. Hands plans to create a total of about 700 loft condominiums in a number of old hat factory structures for the Valley Arts District.

The ratio of affordable arts space to market-rate lofts may seem a little low, Mr. Morrissy said. "But the truth is you don't have to have too many artists to make other people want to be there," he said.

Mr. Morrissy said he believed that creating an arts district could accomplish many goals for the economically depressed city: "revive businesses, beautify a neighborhood, expand recreational opportunities, create careers and attract people back into Orange."

He added that it could improve academic achievement, too. "We know that for kids who are really into the arts, their academic achievement is generally higher. If little Johnny plays violin, he does better at math. So, we are really looking to reach those goals, not just to bring in people to sip chardonnay and look at some paintings."

Mr. Morrissy said that a recent grant from the Wachovia Regional Foundation was being used to finance community arts programs — artists working with schoolchildren, for example — but that work had not yet begun on the buildings.

^^Meanwhile, in Jersey City, the Fields Group is already planning a second major project on Morgan Street, to be called the Hudson. An existing packing warehouse will be renovated to create a 400-seat theater, and a new 260-unit condominium building will be adjacent to it, with shop space at street level and a pool and sundeck on the roof.

[macmini]

THE HUDSON

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Overview
The Hudson (formerly called 126-142 Morgan Street) is a massive full-block artist-centric building that is being developed in the P.A.D on the lots bordered by Warren, Bay, Morgan, and Provost Streets.

Like many of its neighbors, The Hudson will be a mixed-used building that will rise as high as 17-stories - consistent with the roof lines already established by the 140 and 150 Bay. From the artist renderings it appears that the buildings are three separate structures of varying heights with interlocking entrances and presumably common walkways. The entire building is envisioned to include:

-263 residential units.
-9.5% of the residential units will be set aside for artist work/live areas.
-A 400-seat arts theatre and gallery, encompassing over 13,000 square feet (corner of Morgan and Warren)
-A school for arts instruction
-Over 6,000 square foot designed to house a restaurant or café (corner of Warren and Bay)
-217 parking spaces (though this number may have fallen with the latest plan amendment)
-Common rooftop courtyard.

At the time the plan was approved, the residential units were broken as follows:

IBR – 150 ranging from 700 – 900 sq/ft)
2BR/3BR – 78 (ranging from 925 – 1,300 sq/ft)
Duplexes – 11
1 – 1020 sq/ft
2 – 1150 sq/ft
7 – 1400 sq/ft
1 – 1410 sq/ft

24 artist live/work units. According to the plans the entire 3rd floor ringing Provost, Bay and Morgan Streets, including an interior courtyard, will be dedicated to the artist/work units.

The artist/work units will be broken down as follows:

2 – 1,000 sq/ft
10 – 1,100 sq/ft
3 – 1,200 sq/ft
2 – 1,250 sq/ft
1 – 1,300 sq/ft
3 – 1,400 sq/ft
2 – 1,600 sq/ft
1 – 1,640 sq/ft

The JC Planning Board approved the initial building plans back in May 2004 with a more recent amendment passing in September of 2005. In April 2006, another one-year extension was granted the developer due to delays in getting the NJDEP to perform additional testing.

[macmini]

** Deleted for copyright infringement **

- Dylan Leblanc

[macmini]

It's nice to see more projects going on in the Bergen/Lafayette section of Jersey City. This is the first I've heard about this project called Library Hall.


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Library Hall
704 Grand Street
Jersey City, New Jersey

Overview
With all the developer’s attention seemingly focused on Downtown, its easy to overlook another part of town beginning it’s own renaissance – Bergen Hill. With the Webb Park revitalization complete and The Beacon and the Whitlock Cordage Mills restoration and construction well underway, this neighborhood is coming alive with activity. Now another new and interesting redevelopment project is materializing – Library Hall.

You wouldn’t know by looking at the white/red painted brick building sitting at 704-712 Grand St., but there is a lot of history gathering dust on this lot. With approval from the Planning Board last August, the developer has started to kick the dust clear. This project wil feature a unique blend of new and old architecture that should give folks looking to live in a historical building without forgoing the conveniences of modern design something to savor.

Library Hall, a five-story building with roots dating back to 1866, has housed town hall meetings, a library, a police precinct, a sawmill, and most recently rugs. It’s next reincarnation is already planned - a condominium building. The new condo complex will feature twelve “loft-style” units each with it’s own basement storage area and eleven parking spaces. Other amenities include hardwood and tile floors, high-end appliances, and laundry facilities in each unit.

The units will be priced at market rates (estimated to be the high $300k to low $600k) and will include a five-year, 30% tax abatement. The developer will be accepting non-binding $2,500 commitments in April with the anticipated completion in December 2006. If you are commuting downtown or into NYC, the Garfield Avenue Light Rail station is a six-minute walk and buses to Newport and Journal Square are available.

1st floor . (click on link for pdf layout)http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/stories/pdfs/1stfloor.pdf

The ground floor will consist of two commercial units (749 and 664 sq ft) suitable for a small office or business (for example a real estate agency) and eleven parking spaces. A new glass enclosed entrance tower will be built on the southern side of the building and will contain a lobby area and a steel staircase. Additionally, an elevator will run through the center of the building.

2nd floor. (click on link for pdf layout)http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/stories/pdfs/2ndfloor.pdf Units will have twelve-foot ceilings.

unit 1. 2BR, 2BA (1,035 sq ft)
unit 2. 2BR, 2BA (1,106 sq ft)
unit 3. 2BR, 2BA (1,087 sq ft)
unit 4. 1BR, 1BA, plus den (815 sq ft)

3rd floor / 4th floor duplexes http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/stories/pdfs/3rdfloor.pdf(click on link for pdf layout)http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/stories/pdfs/4thfloor.pdf.

These two-story units will have a mezzanine level and stunning 16-foot exposed brick arched windows that will provide NYC Midtown views.

unit 5. 2BR, 2BA (1,740 sq ft)
unit 6. 2BR, 2BA (1,806 sq ft)
unit 7. 2BR, 2BA (1,876 sq ft)
unit 8. 1BR, 1BA, plus den (1,325 sq ft)

5th floor penthouse (click on link for pdf layout).http://jerseycityvibe.com/images/stories/pdfs/5thfloor.pdf The floor of this new addition will be set just underneath the rafters of the existing roof with ceilings that will rise ten feet.

unit 9. 2BR, 2BA (1,035 sq ft)
unit 10. 2BR, 2BA (1,106 sq ft)
unit 11. 2BR, 2BA (1,087 sq ft)
unit 12. 1BR, 1BA, plus den (815 sq ft)

[macmini]

New Pictures taken Saturday May 20th, 2006

Grove Pointe

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Montgomery Greene

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Liberty Terrace

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K. Hovnanian at Paulus Hook

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[James Bond Agent 007]

Someday I might get ambitious and count all the residential units U/C and planned in this thread. ;)

[James Bond Agent 007]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/nyregion/01lefrak.html

June 1, 2006
LeFraks Envision Even Bigger Skyline Across Hudson
By CHARLES V. BAGLI

Standing atop a condominium tower under construction at the Newport complex in Jersey City, Richard LeFrak looked south at a forest of green-glass commercial towers and brick residential buildings that seem to leap from the waterfront. His family and their partner built them, 20 in all.

Although the LeFraks cannot lay claim to the tallest tower (the 800-foot Goldman Sachs building at Paulus Hook), they do own more than a third of the high-rise skyline that has grown up along Jersey City's once dilapidated waterfront. And today, exactly 20 years after his father, Sam, embarked on a seemingly quixotic bid to transform these rusty old railroad yards into Newport, Mr. LeFrak is announcing plans for another hotel and four more apartment towers.

The announcement comes on the 20th anniversary of the start of Newport and calls attention to the part that the LeFraks have played in the current Jersey City housing boom. The new plans represent a $750 million investment, on top of the nearly $2.5 billion that the LeFraks say they have already plowed into Newport.

Mr. LeFrak, 60, said the family is making good on a promise by his father and Melvin Simon, the shopping center developer, to build a community where dilapidated piers, warehouses and railroad tracks stood.

"We're celebrating that we got this far," said Mr. LeFrak, who was involved with Newport from the beginning and has now been joined by his sons, Jamie and Harry. "We're celebrating that the vision of my father and Mel Simon is pretty well complete."

The scale of the undertaking is hard to imagine. At 600 acres, Newport is twice as big as Co-op City in the Bronx. There are 11 residential buildings containing 4,135 apartments, eight office buildings with 5.5 million square feet of office space, a 187-room hotel, a marina, a 1.2-million-square-foot mall and many other buildings and stores. Across the river from Chelsea, the complex stretches the equivalent of about 14 Manhattan blocks. Samuel J. LeFrak, who died in 2003 at 85 and built more housing in New York City during his life than any other private developer, saw the possibilities in Jersey City when most builders turned up their noses.

"Sam was bigger than life," said Bob Cotter, director of planning in Jersey City. "His dream was to build this city on the left bank of the Hudson River. He came over and did it. The waterfront has given Jersey City a panache that it never had."

But some urban planners, neighborhood advocates and residents have complained that Newport has a suburban sensibility. Many of the buildings stand alone, with little connection to one another, or to the older, grittier sections of Jersey City to the west, they say. There is a public esplanade along the Hudson River, with sweeping views of Manhattan, but it is bordered by Newport buildings, giving it the impression of a private enclave.

"I love living in a place that takes your breath away," said Monica Coe, an architect who has lived at Newport for 10 years. "At night you see the sparkling lights of Manhattan, rather than the brick walls you'd get in Manhattan. But it's a little like living in a feudal holding."

Dan Falcon, a 15-year resident, said: "Newport has been malled off from the city. We wanted the city to have access to the waterfront."

Mr. LeFrak does not dismiss the criticisms. "It's a valid point," he said. "We're trying to address that now that we have some density."

The company is filling in some of the empty space between buildings and adding street-front stores, to create street life, and small parks, if not the larger park-on-a-pier that some residents wanted. On a recent morning, office workers and women pushing baby strollers could be seen on the streets.

The LeFraks are known for a kind of efficient, if unimaginative, boxy building that provides the maximum space for the rent. But the buildings in the next round are more interesting, with one, the Ellipse, a sleek, elliptical residential tower designed by the well-known Arquitectonica of Miami.

In the late 1970's, the Jersey City waterfront was a web of train terminals owned by bankrupt railroads. Newport began not with Samuel LeFrak but with Mr. Simon and another mall developer who wanted to build a shopping center anchored with a Stern's department store.

Mr. Simon's bankers urged him to find a partner to build housing. He put in a cold call to Sam LeFrak, persuading him to travel from his office in Queens. The developer then called his son.

"He said, 'Richard, you'd better take a look at this,' " Mr. LeFrak recalled. "I've been dreaming about something like this my whole life."

Sam LeFrak, in characteristic fashion, vowed to undertake "probably the largest job that has ever been built since the pyramids" and create the "experimental prototype city of tomorrow."

Mr. Simon built the mall and the first office building, while the LeFraks built several apartment towers. "He built all the other buildings with cash," Mr. Simon said. "We couldn't afford to borrow the money."

Progress was slow and a devastating recession in the early 1990's sent the nascent "Jersey gold coast" into a tailspin, and the LeFraks say they had huge losses in the first 15 years.

But since 2000, they have built seven office buildings, attracting financial tenants from Manhattan like J. P. Morgan Chase, Knight Securities and Insurance Services Office with cheaper rents and tax breaks, surprising brokers who doubted that the New Jersey waterfront would ever attract office tenants.

The LeFraks have the option of building more commercial space, but the vacancy rate is 14.1 percent, according to the brokers Cushman & Wakefield. And new housing is what's hot. K. Hovnanian and Equity Residential recently bought a commercial site on the waterfront, where they plan to build a 900-unit apartment complex.

Even Donald J. Trump has found Jersey City, lending his name to a $415 million project to build two residential towers, one 50 stories and the other 55 stories.

Mr. Cotter said there are 7,000 apartments planned or under construction within a mile of City Hall, two or three times the number five years ago, fueled by the soaring sales prices and rents across the Hudson River.

"It's not Manhattan," Mr. LeFrak said on a recent walking tour of Newport. "But it's not bad. And it just might," he paused, raising a finger, "might, be better than Brooklyn."

[macmini]

Westin Hotel Breaks Ground in the World's Largest Mixed-Use Development - Newport in Jersey City, NJ

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Thursday June 1, 4:09 pm ET

Westin Jersey City to Have Stunning Views of Manhattan's Skyline and Harbor

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 1, 2006--Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT - News), the LeFrak Organization and Melvin Simon & Associates announce the groundbreaking of The Westin Jersey City, a new waterfront hotel in the Newport mixed-use development in Jersey City, NJ. The 26-story hotel will soar 253-feet in the air and will include 429 guest rooms, with a conference center, 10,000 square-foot ballroom, banquet facilities, pool and fitness center as well as 5,000-square-foot specialty restaurant. The hotel is expected to open in the summer of 2008 and will be managed by Westin.

Located on the Hudson River waterfront, Newport is situated opposite lower Manhattan and offers breathtaking and panoramic views of New York's skyline and harbor. Since construction began 20 years ago, $2.5 billion has been invested and more than 16 million square feet have been constructed. Connected to the rest of New Jersey and New York by PATH subway, light rail, buses and N.J. Transit, Newport has world-class restaurants, businesses and luxury apartments currently housing over 8,000 residents, and is home to prestigious office tenants such as UBS, JP Morgan Chase, US Trust, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab and CIGNA.

"We are delighted that the LeFrak and Simon families have selected the Westin brand to serve as the flagship luxury hotel in this vibrant, prime location," said Sue Brush, senior vice president, Westin Hotels & Resorts. "Westin continues to aggressively grow its footprint around the world, and anchoring urban mixed-use developments like Newport is part of our expansion strategy. We look forward to offering guests Westin's signature amenities and services, providing a retreat from the rigors of the road so that they feel better when they leave us than when they arrived."

"Today, we're acknowledging what we've already accomplished here on the Jersey City waterfront as well as to push on with our master plan to complete this extraordinary mixed-use development," said Richard LeFrak, chairman and president of The LeFrak Organization. "The construction of the Westin Hotel is a key component of the second phase of construction at Newport."

Each of the elegantly appointed guestrooms, all with magnificent views, will feature Westin's signature Heavenly Bed® and Heavenly Bath®. Guests at The Westin Jersey City will enjoy additional guest services such as WestinWORKOUT® Powered by Reebok fitness facility and WestinWORKOUT guest rooms.
Westin's new brand positioning is centered on renewal and offering guests the services, products and amenities that will help them rejuvenate, relax and restore their mind, body and spirit. In keeping with this brand message, all Westin hotels in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean are smoke-free.


The Aqua

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Aqua will be 330ft tall and construction will start in 08 and the building will be all glass

The 32-story Aqua will have 363 residential units, 15,348 square feet of retail, and 291 parking spaces. There will be 20 studio apartments, 169 one-bedrooms, 161 two-bedrooms, and 13 three-bedrooms. The entire space will be 490,063 square feet.

The project will be built by Newport Associates Development Company as part of Newport's commitment to building on the Northeast Quadrant near the Jersey City-Hoboken border.


New Pictures

Shore Club

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Trump Towers

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Washington Commons

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Grove Pointe & Columbus Circle

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"A"

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[James Bond Agent 007]

^
Wow that last set of photos is really great. Gives you a good idea how much construction activity there is.

[Lecom]

Grove Pointe looks impressive. Nice to see some more midrise 15-30 story towers go up, even though too bad that we aren't seeing any major office construction like we have in the early '00s boom.

[kazpmk]

It's nice to see that the construction at Trump Towers are moving in to full swing.

[macmini]

Sweet development

Planning Board to review two projects for chocolate factory site near border

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AFTER – There are plans to build residential
housing on the property, as seen in this rendering.

Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer 06/10/2006

The Jersey City Planning Board will be hearing an application this Tuesday for two residential developments to be built on the Jersey City-Hoboken border.

The projects, known as "Van Leer Place North" and "Van Leer Place South," will be located on Hoboken Avenue in Jersey City. Together, they will total 443 residential units and 446 parking spaces.

They will also have 8,690 sq. ft. of retail space, a 1-acre park, a walkway leading up Hoboken Avenue to the Heights, and a shorter walkway down to the NJ Transit Second Street Light Rail Station in Hoboken.

The projects will be built by Hoboken developers George Vallone and Danny Gans in the next five to six years, on two sections of the old Van Leer Chocolate factory property, a total of seven acres.

Recently, Gans said construction would start in spring 2007 if they receive approvals at the Planning Board meeting this Tuesday.

Vallone said the cleanup would take six to nine months, since the property contains a high concentration of white-cake arsenic dumped there before the Van Leer factory existed.

Developing in 'no man's land'


A visit to the old Van Leer Chocolate factory site last week found it a crumbling ruin, with some of the old factory walls still standing. The company, which closed its operations in 2001 after being sold to a Swiss company, decided to tear down the building to ward off vagrants.

Vallone has been involved in the project since 1996 but had to wait for two other developers to back out of developing the area before he and Gans entered into a contract with the Van Leers to develop in October 2004.

The site sits next to the Hoboken Avenue headquarters of the Hoboken Motorcycle Club.

On the surrounding blocks, there are old warehouses, junkyards, including the Erie Lackawanna Warehouse on 16th Street, an Exxon gas station on 18th Street, and some factories.

Further south, there is the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, the Holland Gardens Housing Complex, and some shops. It is some ways, it's a no man's land.
Not always a no-man's land


But Gans last week refuted that view, pointing out that there are a number of businesses near the site, and that it's in close proximity to a NJ Transit rail station.

"I only live five blocks from the site on the Hoboken side," Gans said. "While people see it as abandoned, I don't see it so far removed from many nice establishments. And it will help spur more development in the area."

Gans pointed out that there is already development of residential housing at 833 Jersey Ave., the former site of the Magashoni Apparel Company by an unnamed Hoboken-based development company. And also there is also the construction of a condo complex at 700 Grove Street by Toll Brothers, Inc., and the Cliffs Lofts project on Paterson Plank Road that will see 124 market-rate housing units with 88 parking spaces.
Tuesday


Gans is looking forward to presenting the project.

"It just takes time," Gans said. "There are a lot of little things and lots of small pieces to take care of in terms of what's being presented in the site plan. It's virtually the same plan as [discussed] before, except we're making sure the garage access is on Monmouth Street rather than Hoboken Avenue as originally intended."

Gans said he and Vallone will also seek approval from the Planning Board next week to rebuild a portion of Monmouth Street, which stops south of the site. He said there's a part of it that runs north of the site, interrupted by a several buildings in between.

Gans said the amount of available land allows for "an amenity package" for future residents.

"Because of the size of the property, we have a tennis court, a small putting green, a swimming pool as well as having a 1-acre park with playground equipment," said Gans. "I don't know of many developments that offer these amenities." Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

©The Hudson Reporter 2006

[buschhoff]

I am an Architecture Student @ NYIT. I decided after reading many articles I want to do my thesis project on the Jersey City POWERHOUSE building. I spoke to several people associated with the building and JC Landmark organization and I have history and many pics. But I really could use some old floor plans, elevations, sections and details. Problem is asking for these from the PATH or Port Authority is not an option due to high security.

Can anyone help me or recommend a place to find some copies.

J Buschhoff

[NYguy]

northjersey.com

The two towers

Thursday, June 22, 2006
By HUGH R. MORLEY


Two 500-foot towers with 901 housing units will rise above the Jersey City waterfront as a more affordable alternative to Manhattan, two developers announced Wednesday.

Red Bank's K. Hovnanian and Chicago-based Equity Residential said they each will build a tower on a 1.76-acre parcel bought from Hartz Mountain Industries of Secaucus for $70 million.

The two will target different markets. Hovnanian will build 420 condominiums, mostly one- and two-bedroom apartments. At the lower end, studios are expected to sell for $300,000. And a small number of penthouses will go for $2 million. Equity Residential's tower will contain 481 apartments. Studios will likely rent for upward of $1,900 and two-bedroom units will probably go for more than $3,000, the company said.

The towers are scheduled to be completed in spring 2009.

Both developers said they expect considerable demand for the units, despite indications that the real estate market is slowing down.

"We believe it will appeal to working professionals seeking proximity to Manhattan, without Manhattan prices," said Megumi Brod, an Equity Residential vice president.

She said it is too early to say how much cheaper the New Jersey units would be than those in New York. But Hovnanian said it expects the condominiums to be 40 percent to 60 percent cheaper than comparable apartments across the Hudson River. The company said that's one reason it is bullish on New Jersey's residential market, especially along the Hudson County water-front.

Another reason is a trend of suburbanites moving to the city, including many older couples whose children have left home, said Randy Brosseau, Hovnanian's area vice president.

"They no longer need the larger residence," he said.

"And they are looking to downsize and have a terrific access to the city in a terrific new modern condo or town home.

At the same time, he added, Jersey City has become a more attractive place to live.

"We have reached a tipping point," he said.

"We see a lot of improvement in retail and lifestyle, and it's generally a much better place to live now than it was 20 years ago, even five years ago."

Still, there is plenty of local competition for buyers. Just a few blocks away, Donald Trump is building more than 850 up-market units in two towers.

Farther north along the coast, Hovnanian this weekend will begin selling 268 loft apartments and 68 town houses that the company is building in West New York, among several other projects under construction on the waterfront.

Scott Selleck, a broker at NJ Gold Coast Real Estate in West New York, noted that the Montgomery Green condominiums nearby has yet to sell out.

"It's a risky situation," he said. "There is a possibility of oversupply. It may be difficult to move those condos."

He said there is a big demand for rental units in that area, however.

Hartz Mountain said it had planned to build offices on the site since 1999.

James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said: "It doesn't seem as if there is a need for new office construction along the waterfront."

In contrast, the high residential prices in Manhattan have created a significant spillover demand in Jersey City, as people look for cheaper alternatives, he said.

Noting that the Trump building is nearby, Hughes said:

"It's going to be competitive, probably. But it suggests there is a new confidence on the waterfront that it is now a viable, established market for residences."

[kazpmk]

I noticed that emporis now has both Trump towers listed as UC. Is that correct? I thought the second tower would begin sometime later.

[tbal]

As of this morning, about one-eighth of the first level of the building's structure has been completed (the base of the complex will be several stories high, and the towers will rise out from this base). So, to answer your question, neither tower is "under construction" yet.

Work started earlier in the week on 77 Hudson Street, with 12 steel I-beams hammered into the ground so far (I'm guessing for the purpose of holding soil in place during excavation of the parking lot). There is a noticeable amount of heavy construction equipment now on the site.

On the JC Economic Development Corp's website, there is a link to a development map. On the map, it shows a third building in the Metropolis towers complex listed as "approved", directly across Christopher Columbus Drive from Columbus Plaza. Does anyone know anything about this project? I couldn't find any info online.

[macmini]

AS for Trump Tower kazpmk only the 55-story building is under construction and as of right now the second tower may not get built.

PAYMENT MISSED

Question mark for more development at Trump complex
Monday, July 10, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Donald is hedging his bets on a twin-tower condo complex he is building in Downtown Jersey City.

The casino and development mogul told The Jersey Journal he and his main partner in the deal, Hoboken-based Metro Homes, reneged on paying $1.9 million to the city, due June 1, because he's not convinced the project's proposed second tower will become reality.

"I think it's going to be built," Trump said on Friday. "But if the world goes to hell in a handbasket it won't be built - unless you're very foolish."

The first of two towers of what will be Jersey City's Trump Plaza is under construction on Washington Boulevard between Morgan and Bay streets. The first tower - purportedly the tallest residential building in New Jersey at 55 stories - is fully financed and will be a huge success, Trump declared.

But the second tower, planned for 50 stories, "may or may not get built depending on market conditions," Trump said.

"We never really had a starting date on the second tower," he added.

Metro Homes, the majority partner in this venture, did make a $2 million "pre-payment" to Jersey City for Tower I last June, city officials said.

Dean Geibel, Metro Homes's managing partner, said Tower II will be built and the $1.9 million "pre-payment" will be made - just not now.

"Since we know we are not going to be putting this building up right now, it seems a shame to lock it up (the money due the city) in that way," Geibel said.

The "pre-payment" amounts to a no-interest loan to the city; the city repays the money once the developer starts selling units and making payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to the city under its tax abatement agreement.

James McCann, the attorney representing Metro Homes, told the City Council at last week's meeting that banks financing the project are jittery about the prospects for selling out the second tower - perhaps thinking the bubble is about to burst in Jersey City's condo market.

McCann said the banks aren't interested in putting more money into the project until 25 to 30 percent of the units in Tower I are sold, McCann said.

Those units won't go on the market until October, Geibel said, but selling shouldn't be a problem - the 455-unit Tower I has a 3,000-person waiting list, he said. The project, announced last September, is scheduled to be completed in 21 months.

On the table at the City Council meeting, held Thursday morning, was a resolution backing up the due date for the $1.9 million pre-payment to May 1, 2007. In addition, the resolution called for a 5 percent late-payment penalty, and for the developers to buy insurance guaranteeing the money. This "payment bond" would cost the developers roughly $100,000, McCann said.

City officials withdrew the resolution to consider a proposal by McCann to delay when Metro Homes has to purchase the "payment bond."

This fiscal year's spending plan included the $1.9 million pre-payment, but taxpayers won't be left holding the bag since other projects have generated more money than expected, said Jersey City Business Administrator Brian O'Reilly.

[macmini]

1,000+ new neighbors

JC waterfront to house two 500-foot skyscrapers by 2008
By Rebecca Kaufman , Reporter Staff Writer

http://images.zwire.com/local/Z/ZWIRE1291/zwire/images/2006/07/2006/07/story/20060721_235631_2_story.jpg
DIGGING – The new homes are expected to open between winter 2008 and spring 2009

Ground was broken Tuesday for two 500-foot skyscrapers, including 1,000 new condominiums and apartments, to rise at 77 Hudson St. near the waterfront. The new project by K. Hovnanian Homes and Equity Residential is "just another step in the advancement of Jersey City," said Mayor Jerramiah Healy at the ceremony Tuesday. The 1.76-acre parcel is located on Hudson and Sussex streets. Randy Brosseau, a regional vice president at K. Hovnanian, said, "[We want to build] a building that will stand the test of time." He added, "There are two words that describe our project best: Luxury and style."


Living in style

One tower will hold 420 condominiums to be sold by K. Hovnanian, and the other will hold 481 apartments operated by Equity Residential.

Equity Residential is expected to rent out the apartments during the winter of 2008, and K. Hovnanian is expected to occupy the condominium building during the spring of 2009.

K. Hovnanian plans to begin selling homes at the property around the end of this year.

The towers of 77 Hudson will be the first Manhattan-style skyscraper in Jersey City, and will feature a curtain wall system, with floor-to-ceiling glass, according to John Cetra of the New York architecture firm Cetra/Ruddy Inc.

Many nontraditional materials will also be used, including terrazzo-like countertops, chiseled marble, and custom-designed cantilevered master bathroom vanities, he said.

The condominiums, 75 percent with Manhattan skyline views, will include approximately 215 one-bedroom units, 144 two-bedroom units, 19 three-bedroom units, and 42 studios.

The apartments will include 132 studios, 209 one-bedrooms, and 140 two-bedroom units.

However, the towers will not only add housing to Jersey City, but also availability of extensive amenities.

The building will have nearly 19,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor to hold new restaurants and stores, as well as a Spa/Fitness center, and a dramatic hotel-quality lobby. A parking garage will contain 920 spaces for residents.

On top of the 10-story parking garage will be a landscaped deck, connecting the two towers, with a pool and a dog run. K. Hovnanian Homes is one of the nation's leading home-builders. Equity Residential is the largest publicly traded apartment company in America.

Revitalization

The new towers of 77 Hudson will not only benefit the Hudson River Gold Coast, but also the other areas of Jersey City, Healy said.

"Jersey City revitalization began on the Hudson Waterfront about 10 years ago," he said. "I know that is has spread west to the Hackensack River and also to the northern and southern borders. Originally, there were areas where no one would invest. Now there are five or six bidders on every vacant lot or building anywhere in Jersey City." Jim Driscoll, the division president of K. Hovnanian, said that the project would be all around beneficial: to the city, new tenants, and the company.

"We can't foretell the direct effect it will have on the rest of Jersey City, but it is an excitable housing opportunity - affordable luxury living," Driscoll said.

Mayor Healy said that the construction of 77 Hudson might also inspire other residents in Jersey City.

"Prosperity is contagious," Mayor Healy said. "People are suddenly taking care of their homes -sprucing them up, cleaning, and painting."

Cetra said, "[77 Hudson] will bring vitality, utility, and twenty four- seven community."

Residents will have just 10 minutes travel time to the Financial District in Manhattan. The location is three blocks from the Exchange Place PATH station, and across the street from a Light Rail stop.

There's even some good news for New York residents, officials noted.

"We're giving those on the east side [of Manhattan] a nice view of what's happening in Jersey City," Healy said. Cetra added, "We are enhancing the view from Manhattan."

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g245/jcwalkingman/77Hudson11.jpg

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g245/jcwalkingman/77Hudson12.jpg

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g245/jcwalkingman/77Hudson1.jpg

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g245/jcwalkingman/77Hudson4.jpg

[macmini]

Powerhouse project gets developer
FRESH START
Friday, July 21, 2006
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The outlook for the long-dormant Powerhouse in Downtown Jersey City got a little brighter this week after the city Redevelopment Authority designated a developer with a lengthy track record for successfully transforming industrial-age buildings into modern entertainment complexes.

City officials say the designation of Baltimore-based Cordish Companies - a key player in the turnaround of Baltimore's Inner Harbor - represents a fresh start for the long-troubled Powerhouse project, which is widely considered the cornerstone of the Powerhouse Arts District.

"This is a turning point for the Powerhouse Arts District and all of Jersey City," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said in a written statement. "Their work at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore is world class and we expect nothing less in Jersey City."

News of the designation was greeted warmly by members of the community who have long fought to see the site both preserved and used.

"It's excellent," said John Gomez, founder and former president of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy. "We actually visited with Cordish back in 2000, hoping they would come aboard."

The current president of the Conservancy, Joshua Parkhurst, agreed.

"I am glad to see the process is moving along and I hope that the builders will come to the community groups and include them," he said.

Officially known as the Hudson and Manhattan Powerhouse, the one-acre building on Washington Boulevard stands 140 feet tall. Built in 1906 to provide power to the Hudson Tubes - the predecessor to the PATH - the building is structurally sound, though a leaky roof has caused extensive corrosion.

The details of the redevelopment project are still being negotiated, but informal plans call for a multi-level mix of entertainment and retail. Its listing on the National Register of Historical Places also means it will restored under U.S. Department of Interior guidelines.

The project has long been hampered by the fact that the city's partner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, houses its transformers for the PATH system at the site.

The Port Authority is spending $400,000 for a consultant to conduct a review of the site, which will look at alternative places for the transformers and the agency's projected power needs in the future, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority.

"From our discussions with the Port Authority, we are optimistic that the issue would be resolved," said city Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis.

It's too early to put forth a timeline, but if and when the transformer issue gets resolved the project will begin to catch momentum, said JCRA Executive Director Bob Antonicello.

How the transformer issue is resolved, along with a host of other considerations, will help determine how the project gets funded. City officials said they expect to lease the space to Cordish, but they would not speculate on other funding formulas.

The JCRA had previously designated a Pennsylvania-based developer at the site, but Antonicello said the project was too large and the city had to find them in default of the agreement.

[macmini]

Echoing the Upper West Side

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

Published: July 23, 2006

JERSEY CITY

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/23/realestate/23njzo.jpgOne appeal of the planned Gull’s Cove condo tower in Jersey City is that it will be next to a new light rail stop and near the ferry terminal.

THE first condominium tower in the 80-acre Liberty Harbor North redevelopment area is now going up alongside a new light rail stop and the commuter ferry terminal at Pier 11 here.

Gull’s Cove, a 16-story tower that will hold 321 residences, ranging from studios to three-bedroom units, is just a small part of a master plan to transform a former industrial area into a neighborhood resembling the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The master plan — recognized in 2001 by the American Planning Association as a model of “New Urbanism” because of the way it incorporates high-density housing, multiple transit connections and a pedestrian-oriented streetscape — was the creation of the Miami architect Andrés Duany. He is the designer of Seaside in Florida, where “The Truman Show” was filmed; it is considered a New Urbanist icon.

Liberty Harbor North is designed to echo the Upper West Side’s network of small city blocks with town-house-lined streets intersecting a few broad avenues facing the waterfront, according to Mr. Duany.

The overall plan includes 6,500 units of market-rate housing, one million square feet of hotel space, 750,000 square feet of retail space, 4.5 million square feet of office space and two parks totaling about 100 acres.

Two locally based builders, Peter Mocco and Jeff Zak, are the principal developers of the $2 billion project, and control more than half of the redevelopment property. Some sites in the project will be developed by others, as is happening at Gull’s Cove. Mr. Mocco and Mr. Zak have yet to announce the details and timing for their own construction plans.

The other developers that will build pieces of the project include the Applied Companies, which developed the Shipyard mixed-used complex with stores and condominium and rental residences on the riverfront.

Meanwhile, the Gull’s Cove tower is being built by Metro Homes, which is based in Hoboken. It has erected the first five floors of steel for the tower, which is the first phase in a three-building project. Gull’s Cove will eventually include another 110 condos in two additional lower-rise buildings.

Situated about a half-mile west of the Hudson River on the north bank of the Morris Canal, the Liberty Harbor North site offers striking views of Lower Manhattan to the east and the Statue of Liberty to the south, said the Metro Homes principal, Dean Geibel.

“The mass transit access from our building can’t be beat,” he asserted confidently one day last week as he stood at the light rail stop opposite the front doors of the building under construction, and looked toward the ferry terminal clearly within sight.

The light rail system makes a direct connection to the PATH train station at Exchange Place, providing a total commuting time to Manhattan that can be as short as 15 minutes, he said.

Furthermore, there is nearby street access to the New Jersey Turnpike and the Holland Tunnel, and Newark Liberty International Airport is only 10 minutes away, Mr. Geibel pointed out.

The condominiums at Gull’s Cove, which are being marketed by Century 21, range in size from 548 to 2,415 square feet and are listed at prices ranging from the high $200,000’s to $1.2 million.

Condominium shoppers can view the variety of floor plans available at gullscove.com, the project’s Web site, and also see digital renderings depicting apartments finished with the materials and appliances that come with a “standard’ or “upgraded” option package.

Standard features include plank flooring, ceramic tile baths, Whirlpool appliances and black granite countertops. The upgraded package includes cherry or mahogany flooring, marble or porcelain tile, premium-grade KitchenAid appliances, and black or sand-colored granite countertops. In addition, closet spaces can be customized with the upgraded package.

Gull’s Cove will have a 24-hour attended lobby and offer concierge services, Mr. Geibel said. It will also house its own cafe, restaurant, bank, fitness club, child-care center and newsstand.

A putting green and landscaped deck are to be installed on the roof of one of the lower buildings, and the complex will include three levels of covered parking.

One of the Liberty Harbor North parks is to be situated on the west side of Gull’s Cove, beside the canal. Various views from the condo tower will overlook the park, the harbor, the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline and, closer at hand, two historic neighborhoods: Van Vorst to the east and Hamilton Park to the north.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Jularc]

Amazing... here is the map of the area they are talking about on the article above.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/21/realestate/23njzo.map.large.jpg