A proposal that would bring a residential development to a vacant property that sits in the shadow of Newark’s Murphy Varnish Lofts project has resurfaced again.
The Newark Municipal Council is considering a proposed ordinance that calls for granting a 25-year tax abatement to a project with 72 residential units in the East Ward. The development would be built at 115-123 Chestnut Street in the Ironbound section of the city.
Back in 2017, plans surfaced online for a project called Vesey Street Commons when this undeveloped lot was put on the market. More than two years later, a company named Ironbound Living Chestnut Urban Renewal, LLC paid $3.8 million for the parcel. This LLC, which is registered out of an address on North Avenue in Elizabeth, is the firm that would receive the tax abatement should the current proposal advance.
The proposed ordinance states that 58 of the units would be “market rate rental units” while the remaining 14 would be “affordable housing rental units restricted to 80% of area median income.”
The first reading of the proposed ordinance took place on September 16.
The tract has been vacant for more than a decade and was previously home to an industrial building used by a paint business named the Wilson Imperial Company. These were later plans to build a facility called the Ironbound Sports Complex on the premises, but the application did not receive the necessary approvals to advance.
