An office building in the middle of Jersey City’s Five Corners intersection that dates back almost a century is nearly fully leased after signing several new tenants over the past 18 months.
GRID Real Estate recently announced that they have secured new deals for the historic Spingarn-Arcade Building. Located at 591 Summit Avenue, the structure was the first mixed-use facility built in Jersey City back in the 1920s and its revolutionary “arcade” concept allowed an open-air market to activate the area.
27,000 square feet of new leases have been signed at the property, including one with the Garden State Technical Institute for an 8,739-square-foot space. Other new occupants at the building include New Jersey Re-Entry Corporation, Riverside Medical, Church World Services, Avita Hope, and the law firm of Feintuch Porwich Feintuch.
“Ownership knew we had to undercut the market by a few dollars in order to fill up the building,” says Gregory D. Edgell of GRID. “Journal Square is in a transition period and though things are finally beginning to look like the renderings have been showing for the past decade, there still is a flight to value, not quality.”
Edgell noted that leasing activity both at 591 Summit Avenue and the surrounding area has accelerated as pandemic-era restrictions have been phased out and urban centers have begun to re-emerge. “Following the scare of onset-Covid 2020, the leasing velocity picked up and never slowed down,” he added
591 Summit has a Red Ribbon Bake Shop on the ground floor and is situated across from a stretch of Newark Avenue that has welcomed restaurants like Mezcal Kitchen, Banana King, Korai Kitchen, Freetown Road, Cafe Peanut, and Ling Long Xuan in recent years.
The neighborhood has several high-rises under construction and will also soon be home to the Frank J. Guarini Justice Complex just down the street from 591 Summit Avenue. That facility is set to replace an administrative building on Newark Avenue that will be converted into a three-acre park for the community.
