The site of a proposed 42-story high-rise on Summit Avenue, near the Journal Square PATH station in Jersey City, is once again in the news as developers and city officials head to court over a settlement from 14 years ago.
On October 8, 500 Summit Avenue Owner LLC, an LLC based in the same offices as New York-based real estate firm Madison Realty Capital, filed a lawsuit against Jersey City in the Hudson County Superior Court. The lawsuit is connected to a preliminary site plan application filed in late 2025 by an LLC affiliated with Jersey City-based developer Panepinto Properties – SP 500 Summit-Dev Co LLC – for an assemblage at 500 Summit Avenue.
The complaint alleges that the city has unlawfully withheld execution of a physical deed of vacation for a portion of West Street. The suit alleges that the city council formally adopted an ordinance vacating part of the street in February 2018, following prior litigation and court orders, but that officials have failed to sign and deliver the final deed required to record the title transfer.
A response filed by the city alleges that a subsequent settlement in 2020 nullified the 2012 agreement and the 2018 ordinance, and that the current developers lack standing because the previous owner’s 2023 bankruptcy and liquidation wiped out prior claims to the West Street properties without transferring them in the deed. The city also alleges that the planning board application is legally defective because it relies on municipal property for setbacks, vehicle turning, and drainage without city consent.
The Jersey City Planning Board has carried the application for a preliminary site plan more than eight times since it was filed in December 2025, according to Eugene Paolino, the attorney representing SP 500 Summit-Dev Co before the planning board during the board’s regular meeting on October 27.
Paolino said the city filed a complaint on Friday, October 23, and that an argument was presented to Superior Court Judge David B. Katz on October 27, around the same time as the planning board meeting. The attorney said that, according to the judge, the board may not consider the circulation and drainage on West Street as part of the application, and that he did not bar the board from reviewing the application.
The property on West Street is not part of the application, but the project requires a circulation ‘feature’ on that same road, according to Paolino.
Paolino said the applicant filed a separate action to secure a vacation of West Street, which city council approved more than eight years ago.
Santo Alampi, the board’s attorney, recommended that the board carry the application to its regular meeting on December 8, just a few days after the developer and the city are scheduled to appear before Judge Katz. The board concurred with Alampi and carried the application, despite Paolino saying he could not consent to the board carrying it, even though he agreed with the logic of the decision.
Filings in Hudson County Superior Court show the 2012 settlement stemmed from a dispute between the city and Robinhood Plaza, the assemblage’s then-owner. A report in NJ.com says that Robinhood Plaza sued the city because the redevelopment plan it adopted in 2010 left the developer with no development potential. The settlement cleared the way for Robinhood’s proposed building to rise 42 stories – 17 additional stories from the height restrictions at the time.
In exchange, the developer would deliver a one-acre park and public plaza between Summit and Baldwin Avenues, but the settlement required that the city vacate a portion of West Street.
The complaint from the 500 Summit Avenue Owner alleges that the city did not enforce the vacation. In 2018, after a subsequent lawsuit, the city passed an ordinance enacting the vacation, but it never executed the deed.
The plaintiff then alleges that in 2024, it acquired the title to the assemblage on Summit Avenue as part of a bankruptcy proceeding related to a liquidation of 500 Summit Mazal LLC, which owned the property at the time. According to the complaint, the assets the plaintiff acquired included the rights to the portion on West Street from the 2012 settlement.
The city’s response argues that 500 Summit Mazal LLC, which acquired the property from Robinhood Plaza in 2016 while the city was still in active litigation with the latter, did not transfer the rights to the properties on West Street.
In 2018, the city and 500 Summit Mazal headed to court over disputes regarding the proposed redevelopment until settling in 2020, at which point the court order, allegedly, stated that all prior agreements—including the 2012 deal and the 2018 street vacation ordinance—were merged, waived, superseded, and replaced in total.
The attorneys representing the city have asked the court to declare the planning board application defective and bar the owner from developing the site, ahead of the scheduled appearance in early December.
