This proposal has not been heard by the Planning Board yet, but probably will in the coming months.
Currently the site is a giant surface parking lot that takes up almost the entire block:
Development of a new thirty-five (35) story mixed-use development containing 624 dwelling units, 165 parking spaces, tenant amenities, 18,377 sq. ft. of ground floor retail/gallery space and an exterior, open-air arcade.
Just 382ft is quite short for downtown. And I’m 99% sure the site is cleared for a much taller building because Veris had planned one befor they sold it. That said the diagram looks very interesting for the base architecture, so it might get a pass once we get better renders.
The zoning only allows 350 feet, i.e., 35 stories (not including rooftop appurtenances/amenities areas)
I’m sure Veris’ proposal didn’t account for the IZO. Any changes to the height would trigger that so building as-of-right is there best option.
Interested to see more on all that retail space. That’s a lot. Look’s a little like Cast Iron lofts, let’s hope it’s better.
Jersey City’s IZO is poorly drafted. A well-drafted IZO would tie the affordable housing obligation to the added floor area that the developer is being allowed by an upzoning or variance. Instead, the obligation is computed based on the overall size of the building. This makes it very unattractive in situations where there is already high zoned density without any obligation (like in this case).
To see what I mean, suppose the developer requested 5 additional floors with 15 apartments per floor. So 75 additional apartments, for a total of 699 apartments. Then the IZO would require them to set aside 15%, or 105 of those apartments, as income-restricted units. (It’s actually a larger obligation than that, because the IZO requires half of the apartments to be 2- or 3-bedrooms, which are much more expensive to build in high-rises…the result is that closer to 20% of the floor area is restricted…anyway, let’s just ignore that for now to simplify the math). And unlike most other affordable housing programs (for instance NYC, New Rochelle, Hoboken) there are no tax incentives that go along with the inclusionary zoning.
So if the developer does nothing, they get to build 624 market-rate apartments. But if they use the IZO, they only get to build 594 market-rate apartments, and to top it all off, they now also have to build 105 restricted apartments and rent them at a loss. (In actuality it’s worse than this because the IZO requires the developer to build a large percentage of the restricted apartments as 2-bedrooms and 3-bedrooms, so
Obviously no developer is going to take that deal. However, if the IZO was structured such that 20% or 25% of the additional height only had to be income-restricted, it’s more likely that the developer would choose to trigger the IZO and build the restricted apartments.
The point is that the current IZO actually makes it harder to get income-restricted units built, by reducing flexibility to reach deals in cases like this.
Great to see another parking lot go away, but that design could use a several rounds of refinement. Able to share who the architect is? Curious if they have a decent record of work.
Architect of record is SLCE. Same firm behind the Provost Square buildings at the old Manischewitz matzoh factory (JERSEY CITY | Provost Square | FT | 38 + 38 + 33 FLOORS)
This is all public record from the city’s permits system btw
someone on reddit noticed soil testing at this site:
Local neighborhood association NIMBYs forced them to increase their parking space count. Now 210 parking spaces.
Height has been reduced from 35 stories to 34 stories.
They rearranged floor plans around, a bit as well. Now 634 units.
Some views at street level:
Given its between Grove St and Exchange Place (as well as not being far from light rail); that’s ridiculous. Sometimes the city needs to intervene and say “no, more parking is not needed”. The existing buildings in this area have already half-empty garages (even the condos!). The only reason I can understand for an increase might be for the theaters. There’s pretty much no need for extra parking though, I’m sure a simple study would show absurd lot vacancy rates in Downtown.
Very good design of the base though! Let’s hope this actually gets built.
I’m sure developers would rather skip the parking also since it takes up valuable space for more residential units or commercial space. Meanwhile, the cost of building a bunch of parking spaces that are just going to sit empty needs to be passed along to the consumer (resident) in the form of higher rent or higher purchase price
