12 Projects that are changing Newark, NJ
Newark is having a building boom, with office towers, high-rise apartments, rehabs and reuses planned and underway. Officials say $2 billion in total investment includes nearly 2,000 housing units now under construction. Here are 12 projects that will alter the face of Newark.
1. One Theater Square
One Theater Square is a 22-story, 245-unit apartment tower being developed by Dranoff Properties and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on a 1.2-acre site across Center Street from NJPAC. Slated for completion in mid-2018, it will include studios through 3-bedroom apartments renting for $1,250 to 4,500, with 26 affordable units.
2. The remaking of Hahne's Department Store
Redevelopment of the old Hahne's Department Store, across Broad Street from Military Park, is a mixed-used project projected for completion this spring. The 400,000-square-foot project, by L & M Development Partners, will include 160 rental apartments, a 50,000-square-foot Express Newark classroom/studio/gallery facility run by Rutgers, a 30,000-square-foot Whole Foods supermarket, and a restaurant by Harlem-based celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson.
3. Teachers Village
The $150 million mixed used project includes three charter schools, now completed, retail space, and 206 apartments for teachers and others now under construction.
4. Bears & Eagles Stadium
One perhaps bittersweet project is the redevelopment of Bears & Eagles Stadium, former home of the defunct Newark Bears minor league baseball team, also named for the Newark Eagles of baseball's Negro Leagues. Last November, Lotus Equity Group bought the 17-year-old stadium from Newark and Essex County for $23.5 million, with plans to demolish it and build a 2.3 million-square-foot residential, commercial and cultural complex.
5. 540 Broad St.
The red sandstone building at 540 Broad St. was built in 1929 as the headquarters of Bell Telephone, and became Verizon's New Jersey headquarters before being sold to L&M Development for $16.5 million in May. L&M plans to refashion the interior into a 260-unit apartment tower, while preserving its distinctive art deco exterior.
6. Audible.com
Audible.com, the Amazon subsidiary that produces audio books, is adapting the Second Presbyterian Church on Washington Street into its new headquarters in Newark, nine years after the company, founded by Don Katz, first moved to the city from Wayne. The $100 million historic reuse project will benefit from $39.3 million in state tax credits under the Grow New Jersey job creation and retention program.
7. 36-54 Rector St.
NBA great and Newark native Shaquille O'Neal is a backer of this 168-unit apartment tower by Boraie Development that, like One Theater Square, will rise near the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
8. Aero Farms
Developed by RBH Group in an old steel mill in the Ironbound section, Newark's fourth Aero Farms indoor vertical farm facility stacks urban crops in trays that don't use soil or conventional watering techniques, for year-round production yielding 130 times more food per square foot than conventional farming. It will also be Aero's new headquarters.
9. Riverside Arms
Riverside Arms is a 128-unit residential project nearing completion on Chester Street in Newark's North Ward, overlooking the Passaic River across Route 21. Well away from the flurry of downtown development, the market-rate project, a cluster of low-rise buildings with tan siding and natural stone accents, has received a tax abatement from the city.
10. TRYP by Wyndham
Newark is the latest location for a TRYP by Wyndham Hotel, an internal makeover of the historic St. Francis Hotel building on East Park Street. CEO Miles Berger said the 101 rooms rooms would be priced at $140 per night. Guests will be able to walk to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Prudential Center arena, Newark Museum, and trains to New York from Newark Penn Station.
11. Hampton Valley
Hampton Valley, on Elizabeth Avenue in the South Ward, is a $15 million overhaul of 89 townhouse apartments available to families with low incomes, funded largely by public sources, and rents subsidized by the Federal Section 8 program.
12. Triangle Park
The proposed Triangle Park is envisioned as a 2.5-acre oasis of fountains, benches and plantings on the site of a former rail yard now used for parking, near Prudential Arena and the Newark Warehouse Building. It would include a pedestrian bridge spanning elevated railroad tracks along McCarter Highway, linking Newark's downtown and Ironbound sections. The park is projected to cost about $40 million in city, state and federal funds, and completed sometime in 2018.