Plans to redevelop a 36,000-square-foot parking lot next to Newark’s Broad Street station and the I-280 exchange in downtown Newark have seemingly run aground five years after the project was approved by city officials and two years after the city and state approved tax incentives for the project.
At its regular meeting on January 26, the Newark Central Planning Board approved a one-year extension for the planned mixed-use tower at 81-93 Orange Street. Plans submitted to the planning board in 2021 indicate that the project, known as The Portnow, has a $150 million budget and will span 14 stories. It includes 350 residential units, 8,500 square feet of retail space, and a commercial parking garage. Seventy units have been set aside for affordable housing. Amenities at the complex will include a pool, health club, spa, work-from-home space, and electric vehicle charging stations.
Approximately half of the planned complex’s 159 units will be one-bedroom apartments. Plans also show that the building includes 87 studios and 104 two-bedroom units.
Jersey Digs reported in 2023 that the New Jersey Economic Development Authority agreed to cover 60%, or $90 million, of the eligible project costs as part of its Aspire tax credit program for residential development.
The project also secured a 30-year tax incentive from the city in 2023. The ordinance for the agreement said that 17 of the affordable units will be set aside for residents earning 40% of the area median income (AMI), 17 for residents earning 60% AMI, and 36 units for residents earning 80% AMI.
The application filed with the city’s planning board lists a corporation based out of Pasadena, Maryland, as the owner of the parcels and a limited-liability firm with the same address as the project applicant. Both corporations are headed by Ann Portnow.
The property appears to have been controlled by LLCs based out of Pasadena, Maryland, since at least 2007, according to records made public by the Essex County Register. The lot has an estimated value of $1.49 million, according to an entry in the Essex County Tax Data Hub.
Jersey Digs could not contact Ann Portnow.
Although the developer has not disclosed a public timeline for construction following the planning board’s approval of the extension, the parcel’s location relative to downtown Newark presents a significant opportunity for real estate development. The 36,000-square-foot parcel is located right next to Newark Broad Street, the second busiest train station in the largest city in the state, the Rutgers Business School, and two blocks from Washington Park – also known as Harriet Tubman Square.
A report in RE-NJ from June said that the owner of the IDT Corp building at 520 Broad Street, just two blocks from the Portnow site, is looking to offload the building and make way for hundreds of new apartments. The report said the site and an additional 4 acres along McCarter Highway are fully entitled, and that Brooklyn-based Sinai Equity Group put the properties up for sale three years after acquiring them for nearly $50 million. Plans for that project call for converting the upper floors into 254 apartments and for a new 40-story residential building with 2,184 units.
