The high-rise development party in Jersey City’s Journal Square neighborhood is about to get a new entry as a tower that will preserve a historic façade and create a new pedestrian area has been greenlit by officials.
During their June 9 meeting, Jersey City’s Planning Board approved an application to revamp several properties at 8-16 Lott Street. The plan for the new tower emerged last February as part of a loan package that was obtained by Long Island-based Namdar Group.
The company is behind a plethora of towers that are rising in the area, particularly along the emerging Homestead Place pedestrian plaza. Their latest plan would rank as their tallest development in Jersey City to date and would partially preserve a long-shuttered building along one of the city’s main retail corridors.
The structure at 629 Newark Avenue had previously been denied demolition by the Historic Preservation Commission, so Namdar Group will incorporate part of the property into its 8-16 Lott Street project. The company is proposing to preserve and restore the storefront façade of the structure in its newest project, which was drawn up by C3D Architecture.
The development calls for a 47-story mixed-use high-rise building that will reach 502 feet at its tallest point. The project is set to feature 26 hotel rooms plus 1,049 residential units, including 105 affordable spaces.
The units at the complex will skew smaller, breaking down as 764 studios, 179 one-bedrooms, 82 two-bedrooms, and 24 three-bedroom spaces. The affordable units at the complex, in contrast, will skew larger: 60 will be two-bedroom units, with 21 one-bedroom and 24 three-bedroom units.
14 of the affordable units will be set aside for those with very low income, 39 for low-income residents, and 52 units for those with moderate incomes. Eligibility for all future units will be linked to the neighborhood’s Area Median Income (AMI).
A total of 2,032 square feet of retail space will be featured on the ground floor of the project, with no vehicle parking but space for 523 bicycles. The development is utilizing the affordable housing accommodation and office floor bonus of the Journal Square 2060 Redevelopment Plan to achieve the allowable height.
The future development on Lott Street will feature brick base walls on the first few floors of the new portion of the structure, designed to blend in with the preserved portion of the building, with a glass curtain wall exterior along the remainder of the tower.
As part of the project, Namdar is proposing to reconstruct Lott Street, transforming it into a pedestrian plaza. The “road” is currently a short, dead-end street that provides vehicle access to a small number of properties, all of which are owned by Namdar.
According to a planning report from Jersey City, future redevelopment of adjacent applicant-owned properties is anticipated to allow extension of this Lott Street pedestrian plaza to Summit Avenue and to provide a pedestrian-oriented gateway between the Journal Square neighborhood and the planned Courthouse Park.
The development will create a new loading zone along Newark Avenue in front of the historic portion of the building, eliminating two parking spots. According to testimony from Namdar’s counsel during the planning board meeting, the company is negotiating with the Jersey City Redevelopment Authority to make a $100,000 contribution towards the buildout of Courthouse Park.
The project was granted several variances by the board during approval related to the tower front setback, tower side setback, minimum distance to the abutting lower-density zone, maximum tower diagonal, and required retail frontage. A potential groundbreaking for the project has not been announced.
