The Jersey City Planning Board recently voted to approve a plan to redevelop a former vehicle service station at the corner of Communipaw and Madison Avenues in the city’s Jackson Hill neighborhood. The plan for the site at 565 Communipaw Avenue will deliver a new five-story building with apartments and retail spaces.
Officials voted unanimously to approve a site plan for the project and one variance during the board’s regular meeting on August 25, after the application was carried on June 9 and July 28. Professionals working on behalf of the applicant, Community Development LLC, told the board the project will replace the existing 4,800-square-foot service station with a building containing 21 apartments and 1,764 square feet of retail space.
Anthony Vandermark, a principal at Hoboken-based MVMK Architecture, told the board the project’s color palette — based on feedback from community meetings held last year — was changed to a terracotta red and champagne-colored panelized cement board.
The proposed building includes eight studios, eight one-bedrooms (three with a den), four two-bedrooms, and one three-bedroom apartment. Unit sizes range from 408 square feet for a studio to 1,067 square feet for the three-bedroom apartment.
A studio and the three-bedroom apartment will be set aside for affordable housing.
The building does not include on-site parking; however, the project includes bicycle storage in a 1,600-square-foot cellar that will also include space for refuse and a trash compactor.
Plans for the new building also call for a 320-square-foot common area atop the building, a 2,190-square-foot roof deck, and a 271-square-foot green roof.
Carolyn Worstell, a planner working on behalf of the applicant, explained the project requires a variance for maximum roof appurtenance coverage for mechanical systems.
The developer also agreed to rebuild the sidewalks surrounding the building as a condition of the site plan approval.
While the development sits along a stretch of Communipaw Avenue that has seen little new development, the area around the site has changed in recent years. Jersey Digs reported in April 2023 that the Jersey City Planning Board approved a site plan for a five-story mixed-use building at 558 Communipaw Avenue, directly across the street from the former service station. The site, previously a vacant lot, was redeveloped into an apartment building with 1,202 square feet of retail space and a roof deck.
