An eight-story, 218,000-square-foot office building that will house Middlesex County employees will be constructed on the site of a surface parking lot in New Brunswick, according to plans approved by the city Planning Board.
The $175-million project, by developer AST New Brunswick LLC of Lavallette, is bound by New Street to the north and Redmond Street to the south and residential and commercial buildings to the east and west. The project is part of a redevelopment agreement approved in January by the New Brunswick Parking Authority.
Office and residential buildings once occupied the site, but they were demolished, and the site has been used primarily for parking.
AST New Brunswick’s site plans include a rendering of the front of the building with a large “Middlesex County Administration” sign over the entrance to the building and on the sidewalk.
“Middlesex County will be a tenant at the New Street building, with specific details to be determined at a later time,” Min Kim, director of the county’s communications office, told Jersey Digs in an email statement. No additional information was provided by the county.
News site TAPinto New Brunswick has reported that “hundreds of employees” would move into the building.
Public space for the county would be on the first floor, and the second to eighth floors would hold Middlesex County administrative offices, TAPinto New Brunswick reported.
The project, with an at-grade footprint of about 27,000 square feet, will include surface parking, new pedestrian sidewalks, and landscape areas, according to a letter to the New Brunswick Department of Planning and Development from Christian Roche, senior principal at Princeton-based Langan Engineering and Environmental Services Inc.
AST New Brunswick’s office building will be located within the New Redmond II Redevelopment Plan, which was adopted by the New Brunswick City Council last year. The plan’s stated purpose is intended to “create new commercial opportunities and new jobs in the City of New Brunswick.”
“The project is fully conforming with the redevelopment plan and is not seeking any variances,” Roche said in his letter.
New Brunswick Planning Board members approved the project at their April meeting.
Langan prepared the site plan and environmental impact statement, and the concept plan for the redevelopment agreement was by Jarmeal Kizl Architects and Engineers Inc. of Livingston.
