I really like the Residences at Liberty.
I love this time of year in Jersey City. Every year around middle spring it starts and the consturction crews and cranes come out of hibernation and start building. It's great all these residential projects will bring more people and money into the city. God I love this town!!!
Liberty Harbor North by Metro Homes
Metro Homes bought 10 acres From the Developer of Liberty Harbor North. In all, phase one will include 432 condominium units, 17 units of commercial retail space and 460 parking spaces. 3 buildings incorporating 432 condominium units construction has started.
Last edited by macmini; September 20th, 2005 at 05:40 PM.
Two factories near JC/Hoboken line to be redeveloped as condos
Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer
In the next two weeks, two old Jersey City buildings near the Jersey City/Hoboken border will be in the spotlight.
The Koven Stove Works building on Paterson Plank Road and Mountain Road was the subject of a resolution passed by Jersey City's City Council at their Wednesday meeting, and The Van Leer Chocolate Factory site on 110-114 Hoboken Ave. near Holland Tunnel is the subject of a community meeting this coming Thursday where developers will present redevelopment plans.
Residents are likely to see the following:
* The Koven Stone Works will be turned into 128 market-rate housing units with 88 parking spaces, and the developers will reconstruct the "100 steps" leading down the Palisades from Jersey City to Hoboken. The City Council voted last week on a developer's agreement to ensure that construction does not damage the Palisade cliffs.
* The Van Leer Chocolate Factory site may see more than 900 condominium units with parking, 8,000 square feet of retail space, a one-acre park, a walkway leading down Hoboken Avenue from the Heights onto the property, as well as a shorter walkway leading to the Second Street Light Rail Station in Hoboken. The plan will go to the Planning Board in August.
Keeping factory features
Much of the area near the border is an industrial no-man's land with abandoned factories that were once hallmarks of Jersey City's industrial past.
But it has been common to employ the principle of "adaptive reuse" to turn urban factory buildings into new residences, while keeping their appealing industrial features.
The Dixon Mills Apartments on Wayne Street in Jersey City were once home to the Dixon Pencil Company. The Whitlock Cordage building on Manning Street, previously the headquarters of ropemakers Whitlock Cordage, will soon be the site of 330 mixed-income townhouses.
Something's cooking at Koven Stove
The Koven Stove Works is a familiar sight for those driving up Paterson Plank Road on the hills between the two tunnels.
The structure is a long, brick warehouse with a sign placed on the exterior that reads "Bookbinders" and advertisements for adopting puppies and getting a mortgage.
But in the next two years, there will be activity in and around the site, where stoves were once built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, the building served as a storage space for book distributors, earning the name "the Bookbinder Building."
Besides building housing and parking, the developers will expand the one-lane Mountain Road, which runs from behind the building up to Odgen Avenue in the Jersey City Heights. Also, the developer will be responsible for building what is called the "new 100 Steps." The old incarnation of the steps existed on Franklin Street in Jersey City above the Palisade Cliffs and allowed people to walk down into Hoboken. That staircase was removed in the 1920s, according a listing on the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy web site (www.jerseycityhistory.net).
All the development work on the Koven Stove building and in the surrounding area will be done by Brass Works Urban Renewal, LLC, the principal partner being Hoboken developer Sanford Weiss, who developed a number of Hoboken buildings, including 101 Marshall Drive and 98 Park Ave.
The work at Koven Stove is also subject to a developer's agreement that was approved at Wednesday's City Council meeting. The agreement is the result of several years of negotiations between Jersey City Heights residents and the developer, and it calls for the developer to comply with a number of stipulations.
Heights resident Clif Steinbring, president of the Riverview Neighborhood Association, said that the agreement protects the Palisade cliffs during construction.
"The building is located in what is called the Palisades Preservation Overlay District, which protects the Palisade cliffs that runs behind the building," said Steinbring. "There are always concerns that the cliffs will come down, that it will happen if there isn't any protection."
The district, approved by the City Council in April 2001, allows for development within an area along the Palisades from Montgomery Street north to the Union City boundary line. But there are special regulations to ensure that the construction does not disturb the structure of the Palisade Cliffs and that the building is not high enough to block Heights residents' views.
The developer's agreement approved on Wednesday will ensure that stabilization procedures are put in place before construction begins. They include fencing at the top of the cliffs, and the installation of monitoring equipment in the homes there.
Also, affected property owners will receive a notice from the developer alerting them to home inspections in case the developer needs to pay for additional insurance coverage.
During construction, there will be drilling, not blasting, and sound will be muffled as the work will be done.
The building height will climb from three stories to five.
Steinbring, who works in the development business, said that the agreement makes the project unique.
"Most projects do not have a developer's agreement. But the [RNA's] attitude is that we don't want to go into a project looking for a lawsuit, but rather [have] an agreement," said Steinbring.
Pre-construction stabilization is to commence in September or October, and construction for the project will start next year.
Sweet happenings at Van Leer
What was the Van Leer chocolate factory building on Hoboken Avenue is now but a mere shell of its former self.
The company, which closed its operations in 2001 after being sold to a Swiss company, decided to tear down the building to ward off vagrants who would have used the building as shelter.
Indeed, a recent visit to the site revealed that a homeless person had left a blanket and a shopping cart there.
But if Hoboken developers George Vallone and Danny Gans have their way, the site will see new occupants of a different sort. Vallone and Gans of the development firm Hoboken Brownstone will, in the next five to six years, build market-rate housing on two sections of the Van Leer factory property, a total of seven acres.
Vallone said he has known the Van Leer family since 1996 but had to wait for two other developers to back out of developing the area before he and Gans entered into a contract with the Van Leers to develop in October 2004.
Vallone is excited about the transformation of the site, provided he gets Planning Board approval.
"There is not a lot of land left in Jersey City to build upon, and when you can find seven acres of land available, then you go for it," said Vallone. "In real estate, it's all about location."
Construction would start in early 2007. A cleanup would take place six to nine months before that since the site contains a high concentration of white cake arsenic dumped there before the Van Leer factory existed, said Vallone.
Nearly 950 units would be spread over seven acres and broken into two sections.
Vallone also said that 8,000 square feet of retail space will be built for a restaurant.
The condominiums would sell for $300,000 to $900,000.
©The Hudson Reporter 2005
Lincoln Center lawn roof model sets a tryout in Jersey City
Monday, July 25, 2005
By KEN THORBOURNE and CLAIRE F. HAMILTON
JOURNAL STAFF WRITERS
A wavy lawn with dramatic slopes downward at the sides will sit atop a restaurant planned for the newly redeveloped North Plaza at Lincoln Center.
And Jersey City residents are going to see it first.
A replica of the "experimental vegetative rooftop" - one quarter of the intended size - is being built at the northwest corner of Morgan and Warren streets in the city's Powerhouse Arts district.
Approved for construction at last week's Planning Board meeting, the model will be finished by mid-September, said Josh Uhl, project architect with Diller Scofidio & Renfro of New York City, who along with Fox & Fowle Architects, also of Manhattan, are designing the new plaza.
The purpose for the Jersey City model is to make sure the cutting-edge design works, Uhl said.
"We are testing waterproofing and soil composition . and the system for soil retention," Uhl said.
"This type of roof system is more common in Europe," Uhl added. "But in the United States it is still a new configuration for a roof lawn system.
Unlike the real thing, the Jersey City model is off-limits to pedestrians.
"There will be a fence around it," Uhl said.
128 units with 88 parking spaces. Great.
I am SURE that people buying a "market rate" condo in the area will not be able to afford a car, so why put any parking? After all, it's not like we NEED parking or anything.... :P
Championship-Caliber Golf Course Takes Shape Near NYC
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could look at a former toxic dump in New Jersey and envision a championship golf course in its place. But that’s just what happened approximately 10 years ago when Tom Kite and famed golf course designer Bob Cupp laid their eyes on approximately 150 acres in Jersey City, overlooking the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline.
Applied Development Company, in partnership with Willowbend Development Company, is creating a one-of-a-kind golf course on the western shore of the New York Bay. This $130 million 18-hole championship caliber golf course, designed by Kite and Cupp, will have a 12-minute launch service to and from Manhattan, with an onboard concierge.
Liberty National Golf Course will have extensive golf practice facilities including double-ended grass tee practice range, putting and chipping greens, and an indoor/outdoor teaching studio. The clubhouse will offer a grille/lounge, banquet facilities, private meeting rooms, men’s and women’s locker room facilities, a golf shop and a spa.
All this on a site that once was home to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co., and later the location of an ammunition and fuel depot during World Wars I and II, and finally a debris-sifting site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Russell M. Bayliss, director of membership selection committee of Liberty National Golf Course, said, “It’s going to be one of the best golf courses you’ll ever play on. We’ve had the president of PGA America here a lot, and we’ve worked closely with him just to get feedback on what it will take to hold a tournament here … the design elements they’d like to see in a golf course, and so on.”
Armored Inc., of Jersey City, NJ, is the primary contractor for the 150-acre, 7,500-yd. course.
“The entire project has been going on for 10 years,” began George Coyne Jr., president of Armored. “Three years of the project involved just taking out the structures that were here. Then the past seven years have involved both soil remediation and constructing the course. It’s quite a project,” which, he added, is scheduled for completion July 4, 2006.
Because of the site’s history, contaminants, such as chromium, were pervasive in the soil, according to Coyne Jr.
“We imported about a million yards of soil and 800,000 tons of sand to create the cap for the contaminated soil and for the contours for the golf course,” he said. “First, we had to take the structures down, the oil storage tanks, etc., and do the excavation. We took the contaminated soil and sent it to Carteret and BioCycle who treated it by spraying the soil with a biological agent that eats hydrocarbons and excretes nitrogen. As a result, we got nitrogen-enriched soil that we put back into the golf course; we used approximately a half-million yards of this soil. Then we placed it above the liner and shaped and contoured it; some of these fills are 17 feet.”
The final grade on the course will be done by another company — the golf course architects. “They sculpt the last of it to a tenth of an inch,” said Coyne Jr.
Currently, most of the remediation work is completed, except the location where the clubhouse and marina will be, the closest point on the site to the Statue of Liberty.
Armored also is doing all the infrastructure work, such as sewer and water, which includes three irrigation ponds built by Armored. “These [ponds] will be the source for the entire golf course,” said Coyne Jr. “Some of these lakes are nine feet deep; we had to dewater them, line them and then capture the natural ground water from the New Jersey Turnpike through a series of culverts. The main source of water for this course will be rainwater.”
Over the past several years, Armored has had an average of 40 workers and 15 machines on site for the project, with Volvo iron making up the lion’s share of his fleet.
Volvos, according to Coyne Jr., save him a lot of money on a project of this scale.
“In today’s market, a big thing is the fuel economy of the Volvos,” said Coyne Jr. “They’re very fuel-efficient. I pay the bills and I’m very conscious of what everything costs me, and they’re [Volvos] the pick of the litter. Plus, the service is great from LB Smith and Todd Ewing, my territory manager. If something breaks, they come to fix it right away. They’re always just a phone call away.”
Adjacent to Liberty National Golf Course is condominium development called Port Liberte. These one- and two-bedroom homes range in size from 766 to 1,510 sq. ft. of living space and are located in four-story, mid-rise buildings with European-inspired architecture and indoor parking. Some are finished and more are currently being built. In all there will be 2,400 units.
In the northeast corner, near where Liberty National’s clubhouse will be, a project soon will get under way to construct the Residences at Liberty. This $224-million project will consist of three residential towers (approximately 52 stories tall), retail space, golf club house, parking and swimming pool.
For his part of the project — the golf course — Coyne Jr. is reflective over how much work has been done and how much the area has changed.
“This place used to be an eyesore. For the longest time, all you’d be able to see from the turnpike is an abandoned oil storage facility … now you see trees and that’s much better.”
Green$ fee$?
http://business.bostonherald.com/bus...rticleid=96721
Reebok Chief Executive Officer Paul Fireman may have some extra time in the not-too-distant future to hit the links.
But he won't just be putting around.
For the past seven years, Fireman has been building an exclusive golf club in Jersey City, N.J., with his son, Dan Fireman, president of Willowbend Development. The two talk daily, often about the massive project taking place under the Manhattan skyline.
"We're working hand in hand," said Dan Fireman.
But the elder Fireman's various other duties keep him away from Liberty National Golf Club, the younger Fireman said. The tee-off date or the club is July 4, 2006.
"Obviously I don't get his time all the time," the younger Fireman said.
But don't cue the "Cat's in the Cradle" music yet. After the purchase by rival Adidas, Paul Fireman told the Herald on Wednesday he's looking to take a step back in responsibilities at Reebok once the laces are tied, which could leave some free time to dedicate to the father-son project.
The Firemans have already put $129 million of their own money into the 7,400-yard course, making it one of the most expensive in history.
Luxury condos at the course will run somewhere between $2 million and $6 million, Dan Fireman said. A yacht will make roundtrips from Manhattan. Those who don't have 15 minutes to make the trip by sea can come by air. Helistop service will be available on-site.
Not bad considering the course now sits on land once occupied by warehouses and an oil refinery. The Firemans even had to evict a member of the Gambino crime family to knock down a warehouse.
"We had an easier time getting him out than we did the oil companies," the younger Fireman said.
Membership to the club will be by invitation only. Fireman said none of the invitations have been sent out yet but the list of founding members could read like a list of who's who in corporate America with Robert Kraft, Thomas H. Lee and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, to name a few, serving in advisory roles.
The Firemans are no strangers to golf clubs. The elder Fireman has a mansion just outside The Country Club in Brookline and owns another club on Cape Cod. But the newest project is "truly our honey," Dan Fireman said.
"You always want to work with your dad," he added.
A Course With a View Is Built on Major Hopes
By DAMON HACK
Published: August 8, 2005
A thousand yards from the Statue of Liberty and steps from the Hudson River is a strip of land that once lay dying on the shores of Jersey City. Petroleum and waste snaked through its underbelly, rendering the land an eyesore.
"Awful," the professional golfer Tom Kite said recently, seated where ruin and decay once reigned. "It was a terrible piece of property. Flat as a table, ugly, abused and mistreated. But what it had was location, location, location."From that cavity, the lush and very private Liberty National Golf Club has sprouted across from the Manhattan skyline. This $150 million project by Paul B. Fireman, the property's owner and the chief executive of Reebok; his son Dan; and the golf-design tandem of Kite and Bob Cupp is creating a buzz less than a year before the first players tee off.
The club is set to open July 4, 2006, with a founding membership that includes the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and the New England Patriots' owner, Robert K. Kraft. And already the course is anticipated to be a one-of-a-kind experience that may one day challenge courses like Shinnecock Hills on Long Island and Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., site of this week's P.G.A. Championship, as a host for golf's most prestigious tournaments.
Built on 160 acres and covering 4,000 feet of waterfront, the course stretches 7,400 yards from the back tees, with small rivers running through it and a $1 million cart path built with Belgian stones.
The clubhouse will feature a menu from the restaurateur Tom Colicchio of Gramercy Tavern and Craft. The course will offer a 15-minute luxury yacht service from Manhattan and, for those with quicker needs, a helipad.
Each member will have a custom-made set of clubs that will always be available at the course, a kind of thank-you gift for joining a club with an initiation fee of around $500,000.
But what separates it, members say, is the view from the ground, a vista that no parkland course or ocean links can claim.
"There is nothing more dramatic than lower New York Harbor, the Empire State Building and the shape of the Verrazano Bridge," said the founding member Kenneth G. Langone, the chief executive of the securities firm Invemed Associates and former director of the New York Stock Exchange. "Can you imagine having that view as the last shot you see on the last hole of a major tournament?"
Kite, when asked if he felt the course could stand up to the demands of a major championship, said Liberty National qualified on several fronts.
"It has plenty of teeth," he said. "It's all you want. It also lends itself to do great things on it, like the blimp shots you see at a major championship, the pan-in, pan-out shots at Pebble Beach."
But Kite, the 1992 United States Open champion and former Ryder Cup captain, said it could take time.
"There is no way you can shortcut history," he said. "You have to build it. Obviously, we feel we can make it happen."
The New York area has been awarded several major golf events in recent years, including the 2002 United States Open at Bethpage Black, the 2004 United States Open at Shinnecock Hills and this year's P.G.A. Championship at Baltusrol. Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., will play host to the United States Open in 2006, and Bethpage Black will welcome it again in 2009.
The competition is fierce for these events, as it is for the international Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup competitions.
The United States Golf Association, for example, which has its United States Open sites scheduled through 2012, receives invitations from courses from around the country. The association chooses several to examine and considers space for grandstands, concessions and merchandise tents, as well as a city's hotel space, parking and security.
The Presidents Cup, which will be contested in September at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Lake Manassas, Va., evaluates similar factors as well as others, including the weather, the amount of daylight, the roads and the city's infrastructure, said George Burger, the general chairman of the Presidents Cup.
"It's very similar to getting a political convention in your city, or a Super Bowl, and it's a distant cousin to an Olympic bid," he said.
But the golf course itself is crucial. And while Liberty National has yet to open, it has built-in qualities that may already make it a contender for golf's marquee events, Burger said.
"It's the credibility of the architects, the credibility of the membership and the credibility of the site itself," Burger said. "When you get that good of a design, a great property and good members, those are the new courses that will be contenders for majors. The only thing it lacks is history. But given the site, that may be something that will get it over the hump."
Billy Getty, a founding member who has started his own company specializing in golf course development, said of Liberty National: "There are only so many golf courses that if you walk to the middle of it blindfolded you'd immediately know where you are. Being able to use the Statue of Liberty as alignment is incredible, but also, since 9/11, things resonate emotionally more than they did. I don't think anyone will escape the butterflies in their belly seeing the Statue of Liberty and the replacement for the towers being erected."
Fireman, who opened the private course Willowbend on Cape Cod in 1993, has been involved in the Liberty National project for more than five years, from the property's filthiest state to its shiniest.
"We cleaned it up spotless, and it required a lot of money," Fireman said. "I'm sure everybody who builds a golf course and spends a lot of money thinks something special will happen to it. I'm looking to have a good experience for the membership and the people that visit. With New York City, you can't get a more dramatic picture. I think history will find its way."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Last edited by macmini; August 10th, 2005 at 11:34 AM.
macmini, you scooped me by minutes on the NYT article...:-)
I guess jcman has competition.
Go JC!
Lol a rival sweet. Here you guys something new for you to check out about Jersey City to just further more show JC's popularity with arts and culture, here is our own internet radio for our local bands. You check the artisits and playlists and other news.
http://www.jclir.com/
JC all the way!!!
$500K??!?!?!
It's nice and all, but come ON! Are they looking to get back their construction fees in the first year or something?
About Time!!!!
$800K walkway from JC to Hoboken?
Federal bill gives $$$ to new transportation projects
Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer 08/05/2005
THE PATH TO MONEY – The Pavonia-Newport PATH Station will have another entrance in the future with the help of $1.67 million earmarked by the federal government through the efforts of U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez.
Congress passed a $286 billion federal transportation bill last Friday that included $44.5 million for Hudson County's highway and transit projects.
These will include a $800,000 walkway between Hoboken and Jersey City over Long Slip Channel, allowing Jersey City residents to get off trains and buses at the Hoboken terminal and have the choice to walk over to Newport.
Additionally, $840,000 is allotted for a parking facility with 767 spaces in the McGinley Square section. The facility would house retail space on the street level.
Former Ward E City Councilman E. Junior Maldonado said that the Jersey City/Hoboken walkway, besides increasing transportation options, would help bridge a gap in the state-mandated waterfront walkway that spans from Fort Lee to Bayonne. He said that NJ Transit owns this body of water, but they had said in the past there was no money to develop the walkway.
SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users) is a bill that guarantees funding over a six year period from 2004 to 2009.
Congressman Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.), responsible for much of the money earmarked, was enthusiastic about the bill providing $167 million for the district he represents, in particular funding for the Liberty Corridor.
A number of projects will see money pouring in once the bill goes into effect later this year. In Jersey City, six projects will receive a total of $7.3 million in funding.
They are:
-The rehabilitation of Route 139 - $1.6 million;
-Construction of West Entrance to Pavonia-Newport PATH Station - $1.67 million;
-McGinley Square Intermodal Facility - $840,000;
-Possible public walkway and bike path over Sixth Street Embankment - $1.6 million;
-Route 440 Rehabilitation and Boulevard Creation Project - $1 million;
-The Jersey City/Hoboken walkway, $800,000.
Rehabilitation of Route 139, viaducts
The $1.6 million in federal dollars for the rehabilitation of Route 139 will help defray some of the $209 million that the state Department of Transportation is spending there. The project will see the repair of the 12th and 14th Street viaducts in Downtown Jersey City. The viaducts, both of which are over 60 years old, support the roads that lead to and from the Holland Tunnel.
Work on the first phase started last month with construction under the 14th Street Viaduct and will continue through October. The entire project is expected to be completed in 2010.
Several meetings were organized by former Ward E City Councilman E. Junior Maldonado in the past year and a half to address concerns by downtown residents of increased traffic during construction.
Marc Lavorgna, spokesperson for the NJDOT, said that the $1.6 million in federal funds for the viaduct project will allow the state to use $1.6 million of their own money for other state projects.
Menendez and the Liberty Corridor
Of the $167 million that Rep. Robert Menendez brought to the 13th Congressional district, $104 million will go towards developing the Liberty Corridor.
This is a concept that Menendez laid out several years ago that would reinvest in the infrastructure of the region, creating a more investor-friendly, more modern industrial area.
"The Liberty Corridor is more than a collection of highways and rail lines. The Corridor will be an economic engine like no other in the country. Research and development, manufacturing and export facilities will co-exist next to one another along one Corridor," said Menendez.
Liberty Corridor, which emanates from the port of New York and New Jersey, travels north, south and west along railways, roadways and waterways. The $104 million will fund projects that help to improve the infrastructure in the Corridor, with the goal of being able to move freight more efficiently from Port Newark and Port Elizabeth, which will decrease the amount of truck traffic on the area's already overcrowded highways. It also is intended to stimulate the revitalization of contaminated sites around the Port region, attract new manufacturing and distribution centers with jobs, and strengthen the Port's status as the pre-eminent trade center of the East Coast.
There are over 1,000 acres of old industrial sites within 25 miles of the port. These underutilized sites can be redeveloped as freight and manufacturing villages that afford the region new jobs. In addition, these improved transportation links will permit a more efficient movement of cargo to and from existing distribution center clusters. - Al Sullivan
©The Hudson Reporter 2005
From the NY Daily News
Originally published on August 17, 2005
Side dish
The people of Boonton, N.J., turned down two requests for "The Sopranos" to shoot in their town. But Jersey City apparently doesn't think the mob hit will tarnish its image. We hear James Gandolfini and his crew will be filming one of the sixth season's last episodes at the Beacon, a new $350 million residential community at what used to be the Jersey City Medical Center ...
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