The dramatic transformation of Port Imperial is adding another piece to its puzzle with Avora, a new project from Landsea that broke ground and opened up their sales gallery late last week.
Avora will feature 184 condominiums in an 11-story building that will have resort-style amenities. The project, almost directly next to the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal, was designed by IBI Group and will have a multi-tiered, stepped-back design that Landsea says will maximize the building’s waterfront location and Hudson River views.
The newest building should indeed have some great scenery, as the condominiums in Avora follow the latest Port Imperial trend of having large windows and major glass components. Avora will have one, two and three bedroom units, plus a few duplex penthouses. Homes are pre-construction priced from the $800,000’s.
Avora will also have a bunch of bells and whistles like a concierge, a private screening theater, a business center, a lounge complete with a bar and catering kitchen, and a state-of-the-art fitness center. A third-floor landscaped outdoor plaza will feature a pool, sun deck, lounges, grilling areas and fire pits. For the rest of us, the ground floor will have 6,000 square feet of street-level retail space. Landsea says the building should welcome its first owners in early 2018.
Buildings like Avora and Lennar’s 1200 Avenue at Port Imperial, which opened earlier this year, once seemed unimaginable when development first started in the area two decades ago. Historically, the narrow waterfront neighborhood was an extensive rail and shipping port for years but fell into disrepair as the industry moved to consolidated, larger facilities.
But in the 1980s, Arthur Imperatore purchased much of the land, which runs through the towns of Weehawken, West New York and Guttenberg, and established the New York Waterway ferry system in 1986. Port Imperial, whose name was inspired by Arthur’s surname, eventually transformed from vacant land and parking lots into a modern residential neighborhood that has a few retail sections like Riverwalk Place.
Part of what spurred the area’s revitalization was connecting some of the old railroad tracks underneath the Palisades cliffs into the modern Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system. And directly on top and next to that Light Rail station, Mack-Cali subsidy Roseland is currently building two separate Marriott hotels, with each being catered to different types of travelers.
The hotels will be a 210-key Marriott Renaissance and a 154-key Marriott Residence Inn, which will be connected to one another. The development will have event space for 450 guests and a 15,000-square-foot deck on the sixth-floor sky lobby, which will be built on top of an 850-space parking deck that will feature 17,000 square feet of retail space on one side of the building.
The Renaissance hotel will include guest rooms, a lounge, and breakfast space, while the Residence Inn will be for longer customer stays and have larger rooms that are equipped with full kitchens. Mack-Cali hopes to complete the project at the end of next year.
Construction has also started stirring on the final phase of Lennar’s Henley on Hudson development just south and lots are becoming hard to come by, indicating that Port Imperial’s total build-out may not be much further away.
