While much of the focus regarding the increase in population, commerce, and development in Newark has been on the city’s Downtown, Ironbound, and University Heights neighborhoods, a few miles away in the South Ward, new projects are launching as well.
Construction is finally set to begin on one development that will consist of two buildings, Building A at 1041 Bergen Street, at the corner of Lehigh Avenue, and Building B at 1057 Bergen Street, at the corner of Harding Terrace. According to the Newark Community Economic Development Corporation (NCEDC), a groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Monday, July 17th at 11:30am for this upcoming project in the Weequahic neighborhood, which will be known as Tucker View. The NCEDC describes Tucker View, which was first proposed several years ago, as a “transformative project that will serve as a catalyst for change of the South Ward’s Bergen Street commercial corridor,” and the corporation’s website states that it is being developed by Kiburi Tucker’s Bergen Street Redevelopment, LLC.
Building A, which will be five stories tall, will include 32 residential units over first floor retail space, which is currently available. Meanwhile, down the street, the four-story Building B will feature 10 residential units atop a ground floor community center. According to a post by the South Ward Special Improvement District, the units will be a mixture of one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, and three-bedrooms. C+C Architecture, of Jersey City, is listed as the project architect, while Matrix New World, of Florham Park, is registered as the engineer for this “modern residential development.”
The project was downsized from the original proposal, which, according to renderings posted by C+C Architecture, called for Building A to be eight stories tall with 66 units. City records show that the current project received a $1.3 million grant from the Federal HOME Program that was authorized by the Municipal Council and the Mayor “to subsidize the acquisition, construction and predevelopment costs”
These properties, which are located within close walking distance of Weequahic Park and direct New Jersey Transit bus service to South Orange, Downtown Newark, Newark Liberty International Airport, and Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, currently contain gated vacant lots. Until recent years, the site of Building A contained the Rittersbacher Building which was home to the 4 Leaf Deli.
