A plan that calls for bringing dorms for college students to three floors of a Jersey City building has been given the all-clear to move forward.
The application by Bay Street Associates, LLC was granted Preliminary and Final Site Plan approval with conditions by the Jersey City Planning Board during its meeting on November 12. The company is planning to bring 72 dorms to the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of 150 Bay Street in the Powerhouse Arts District, according to a legal notice.
Nine units for resident advisors, a study lounge, a cafeteria, and a recreation area for students are also planned for the 121,041-square-foot space, which sits within a former A&P warehouse that has since been adaptively reused into lofts, art studios, and retail space. The three floors in question were previously used by Keepers Self Storage.
The dorms are not expected to be occupied by students of Hudson County universities. Instead, they are being developed for students of Nyack College, a small Christian school with a campus opposite Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.
The college is in the process of closing what has long been its main campus nearly 30 miles upriver outside the Rockland County, New York village of Nyack, according to The Journal News. All courses are expected to take place in Manhattan in the coming years, meaning that instead of walking across a suburban Rockland County campus to get to class, residential students will instead be expected to take a ferry or PATH train across the Hudson.
Nyack College has already posted proposed room layouts and floor plans for 150 Bay Street on its website. The dorms are reportedly expected to open in time for the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester and serve over 400 students.
