A popular seafood market and eatery that closed early last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic has re-evaluated its plans due to flooding worries and decided not to move its operations and expand its business to a Downtown building.
Last summer, Jersey Digs broke the story about the planned revival of Tutta Pesca. The business shuttered its Third Street space last March in a move somewhat surprising to locals, as the 32-seat restaurant was one of the hottest dining spots in the Mile Square City and included a first-floor market that sold fresh seafood.
An entity called 557 First Street LLC purchased a Hoboken building at the same address and ownership of that company can be traced to Tutta Pesca owner Michael Caracappa. He submitted plans to revamp and expand the current three-story building vertically by one floor that included an ambitious two-floor dining facility spanning 3,000 square feet slated to feature an event space plus a rear patio.
The plans would have allowed the new Tutta Pesca to seat over 90 diners, but the proposal was not to be. According to a transcript from the planning board’s March 9 meeting, Hoboken’s Floodplain Administrator sent a letter to Caracappa informing him that the building’s basement could not be used due to flooding concerns.
It was then decided that Tutta Pesca would not be moved to 557 First Street, as there would not be sufficient space for the facility’s planned kitchen. A new application for the property was approved last month by Hoboken’s planning board and it instead calls for the demolition of the building at the site.
Designed by Nastasi Architects, the reworked project will sport a traditional Hoboken brick façade and rise five stories. The first floor includes an 850-square-foot retail space that will be built as a generic vanilla box. Planning board testimony claimed that no tenant has been signed for the space.
The remainder of the development will include four apartments plus a roof deck for tenants that features an outdoor kitchen. The board granted the project variances for building height, lot coverage, and rear yard setbacks when signing off on the plan.
A fresh inquiry Jersey Digs placed seeking more information about Tutta Pesca and the approved plans has gone unanswered. The company controlled by Caracappa still owns the First Street property and a groundbreaking date for the new project has not been announced.
