It was a Friday morning on Newark’s Sussex Avenue, and developer Pedro Gomes made a prediction — that at some point, he would see a twenty-something professional woman walking her dog. Not long after, the prediction came true.
“Look — you see it now,” he said.
The reason this prediction is so meaningful to him is that eight years ago, Gomes didn’t believe young professionals, especially women, would have felt safe enough to walk alone here even in the daytime. But he believes his development company has pulled off what naysayers said was impossible — turning around a blighted neighborhood once defined by empty lots and dilapidated buildings.
“I was doubted by everyone,” Gomes said. “They said the neighborhood was ‘hood’ and ‘ghetto’ — you can’t imagine the things people said. But I said, ‘No, I can do this.’ And eight years later, this is where we are.”
Today, the 40-year-old developer is the largest property owner of this still-nameless neighborhood along Sussex Avenue in the Central Ward of Newark. His holdings have just grown with the recent opening of Vida by Gomes at 34-40 Hudson Street. Along with the ribbon-cutting, Gomes also unveiled a new name for the neighborhood.
“We’re calling it the NoVu District,” Gomes said. “It means new beginnings.”
Gomes claims to oversee 1,000 units, but he believes he could eclipse 2,700 units if all seven of his prospective projects come to fruition. What’s more, they’re all within walking distance. Another project just got approved at 250 Orange Street, and yet another at 273 Orange Street should be appearing before the Planning Board soon. That’s a staggering number for a developer who didn’t have the backing of a large corporation behind him.
Gomes, who was born in the Ironbound, said he was 23 when he flipped his first property, a four-family apartment building. With the profits, he built two new construction homes. His first multi-unit building came in 2017 in the Central Ward, where he took a “gamble,” he said, after feeling priced out of the East Ward.
But Gomes has not reached this level unscathed — few big developers do in a city like Newark. For Gomes, the discussion on Reddit forums has been about enforcing his leases. Gomes said he couldn’t discuss specific cases, but that his attorney handles the leases and follows the contracts to the letter.
“If the protocol in the lease says X, you are to be held liable for X. It’s there in black and white and it’s done by an attorney,” Gomes said. “We’re at 98-percent capacity, so we have to be doing something right.”
Later in the tour, Gomes admitted he still has room to grow. “I’m learning as I go. I didn’t have someone to guide me,” Gomes said. “I’m building the plane as I’m flying it.”
Here are some observations of Gomes after spending the morning with him. He is a perfectionist — particularly in the way he inspects the interiors of his buildings during site visits. In one of the buildings, the ceramic bulldog was not exactly in the right spot, so he adjusted it a few inches until it was just right. Another art piece had gone missing, and he made a frantic call to the staff to locate the missing statue. The gears of his mind are always spinning.
He appears to have something to prove. His latest Zoning Board approval is for a project at 250 Orange Street. It is an “extension,” he calls it, of an existing building called Arbol by Gomes. But this application has a long history — it was initially intended to be a 15-story-tall tower, the tallest building the Gomes Group would ever build. But that version was voted down in 2023. Still, it offered a glimpse into his ambitions.
Gomes has his sights set on eventually building a high-rise on the plot of land at 253 Orange Street, right across the street. The building is designed by the Musial Group, a firm in Mountainside that has become his regular collaborator. “It’s zoned for that,” he said about the high-rise. “We can build that high.”
Gomes also has an inner restlessness — perhaps rooted in impatience — to see the neighborhood’s transformation completed. During the tour, Gomes walked from Norfolk Street down Sussex Avenue, and even in the morning, there was a crowd of day-drinkers gathered outside the liquor store. The sign on the shop reads, Please remove ski masks and hoods before entering.
This is not the sort of “vibe” Gomes wants to cultivate. But he’s limited to what he can control as a property owner. To help speed up the transformation of the corridor, he plans to convert an empty lot into a dog park, and he is teaming up with NJ Transit to renovate Norfolk Avenue Station. He also successfully lobbied to get a police substation inside his company’s headquarters on Sussex Avenue. Add to this seven murals that his firm commissioned, including the one of Mother Teresa —who established an order of nuns in the city — on the building at 63 Norfolk Street.
“Yes, we’re building buildings, but we’re actually building communities. There are a few developers who are doing that, but it’s not typical,” he said. “My legacy to leave is simple — the guy who grew up in Newark who changed an entire neighborhood.”
The only other large developer that has infiltrated this neighborhood is Tona Development, the firm behind the undulating glass building called the Hoyt Tower and another soon-to-be-built 230-unit project at 92-96 Norfolk Street. Other than that, Gomes feels like the lone wolf of this side of the Central Ward. But competition from other developers is not what frustrates him. It is the projects that get approval but never see shovels in the ground.
“I can tell you 50 projects that were approved, and they’re not going to break ground – look at Bear’s Stadium.” “Every piece of land that doesn’t have a shovel in it means it’s not being brought to life.”
