The owner of a 1.3-acre assemblage in downtown New Brunswick is moving forward with a plan to erect a 23-story mixed-use high-rise that includes apartments, office, and retail space.
At a city planning board meeting held in mid-July, the Woodbridge-based real estate firm Wick Companies secured site plan approval to redevelop eight parcels near the city’s HELIX development and next to the police department.
Meeting materials state that Wick intends to develop 331 studio, one, two, and three-bedroom units at 90 Bayard Street. The first floor is set to house several retail pads and office space, while the second through fourth floors will be used for parking.
Approximately 36,800 square feet of office space will comprise the fifth story. The sixth through 23rd stories will house apartments and residential amenities, including an outdoor pool and a rooftop lounge and deck. Approximately 20% of the units (67) are set aside for affordable housing.
The approved site plan says that the project is comprised of 54 studios, 191 one-bedroom, 72 two-bedroom, and 14 three-bedroom apartments, and that all three-bedroom apartments will be set aside for affordable housing. The commercial and residential buildings at 10, 14, 20, 22, and 24 Kirkpatrick Street, 90 and 92 Bayard Street, and 159 New Street will be torn down to make way for the new building, which will stretch for one whole city block and wrap around a parcel owned by Emanuel Evan Lutheran Church.
The assemblage itself has significant street-level visibility with more than 490 feet of frontage along New, Kirkpatrick, and Bayard streets. It is also in the immediate vicinity of the Middlesex County Administration Building, City Hall, the city’s post office, and on the same block as two new office and residential developments.
A report from TAPinto New Brunswick from July says that construction is slated to commence next year or in 2027 and that it will take at least a year to develop the new building.
Wick Companies has, however, been working to redevelop the site since before 2017. A report in TAPinto New Brunswick says that the city’s zoning board approved plans for a 20-story mixed-use building at its meeting held in September 2017. A representative from the company said at the time that construction would commence in mid-to-late 2018 and that all tenants had been given notices to vacate.
In 2020, the developer secured a long-term tax exemption from the city council, but plans to commence construction were affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the July report in TAPinto New Brunswick.
In September 2023, the developer went before the city’s zoning board again to seek approval for an amended plan for a 22-story building with 222 apartments, according to a report in New Brunswick Today.
Wick Companies did not return a request for comment from Jersey Digs.
