From Maplewood to Morristown, communities surrounding train stations on New Jersey Transit’s Morris and Essex Lines have seen a surge in proposals for new residential developments in recent years. Many companies have looked to neighborhoods within Netcong, Dover, Madison, The Oranges, and Newark as places to construct transit-oriented developments, ranging from small infill structures to major complexes. The Valley neighborhood in Orange and West Orange has been following this trend, with projects like Hat City Lofts and the Harvard Printing Apartments opening their doors close to the Highland Avenue Train Station. Now, just a stone’s throw away from the other projects, a new building is planned for the area.
A multi-family residential development is set to be constructed at 22-24 Central Avenue in West Orange, between Valley Road and South Jefferson Street. A legal notice from the Essex County Division of Housing and Community Development states that the building is expected to include 100 units, 45 of which would be rented at market rate. The remaining 55 would be designated as “affordable rental units,” with 11 being reserved for “low and very low-income households” under the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME program. A $780,000 loan would be provided in connection with the HOME units.
Valley Road Residential Urban Renewal, LLC, also known as Valley Road Residential, LLC, is behind the plans. NJ Parcels records show that the company is registered out of the same building in Fort Lee as The Alpert Group.
The site is situated across from Orange’s Harvard Printing Apartments alongside the East Branch of the Rahway River, which is now flowing outside after largely being buried underground for years. Previously, the property contained multiple industrial structures that were used by companies like Selecto-Flash, Inc., but they were all demolished last year to make way for this development.
Since the site is in a 100-year floodplain and wetland, the legal notice states that the “County would require that the owner of the project maintain adequate flood insurance for the property, undertake measures to mitigate the potential impact of flooding to the proposed building, and undertake measures to minimize adverse impacts and to preserve the wetland area.”
