The Newark Central Planning Board recently voted to approve a site plan for a 100% affordable building at the corner of Halsey Street and Central Avenue near Harriet Tubman Square and Military Park. The project, known as Kawaida Towers, will replace the vacant lot at 17-21 Halsey Street with a 10-story, 33-unit apartment complex that includes rentals and affordable condominiums.
Members of the planning board voted to approve the project’s final site plan at the board’s regular meeting on October 19. They also approved several variances for setbacks, shade trees, and buffers as part of the application.
Professionals working on behalf of the applicant, Kawaida Towers JV Partners LLC, told the board that the complex will include a 3,166-square-foot retail pad for a grocery store and a residential lobby off Halsey Street. According to a site plan the board made public, the project includes six one-bedrooms, 16 two-bedrooms, and 11 three-bedrooms.
The project includes a 700-square-foot fitness center, a roughly 1,700-square-foot outdoor roof terrace, and a tenant lounge spanning over 1,480 square feet.
The project applicant is a joint venture by Omni America LLC, the Mid-Atlantic Alliance, and the National Action Network, according to a report in TAPinto Newark.
The approval comes 50 years after another project in Brick City’s North Ward that had the same name was at the center of civil rights-related protests. That proposal, which was championed by Amiri Baraka, the poet and late father of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, called for a 16-story building with 210 affordable apartments at 129 Lincoln Avenue. It was named after a pan-African organization led by Amiri Baraka, known as Kawaida Temple.
The project on Lincoln Avenue was eventually scrapped in 1976 after former Newark councilman Anthony Imperiale led opposition that led to a lawsuit against the project. Residents of the North Ward also opposed the project because it lacked off-street parking and because they feared the neighborhood would be turned into a slum, according to a report in NJ.com.
On the other hand, Jersey Digs reported in June 2021 that investors have sought to redevelop this site for many years. A limited partnership known as Kawaida Towers, registered at the same address as Omni New York and Omni America in New York City, filed an application with the city’s Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission to demolish the site at 17-21 Halsey Street. The project, also known as Kawaida Towers, called for a 16-story apartment complex with 72 units and over 5,500 square feet of commercial space. Jersey Digs reported in May that the city issued an $8 million grant to Kawaida Towers JV Partners LLC; however, the developers had already downsized the 16-story project.
