A 13-story building that has stood half-renovated and vacant for more than a decade at the border of Hoboken and Jersey City will soon be turned into a residential apartment complex, developers say.
In the next year, a group of area business people, led by the Ingerman Group of Cherry Hill, plans to pour $15 million into renovating the balcony-adorned 102-unit building, which sits at 689 Henderson St. – just steps away from Observer Highway. If the Jersey City Council approves a tax abatement plan for the .25 acre property at its legislative meeting on August 16, as expected, then tenants could begin moving into the buildings’ one and two bedroom rental apartments as soon as next spring.
This is not the first time that developers have hoped to turn the building, which was once used as an industrial warehouse, into a residential apartment complex.
For years a string of owners had begun work on the project only to stop months later for one reason or another, leaving residents to wonder what would happen with the half-finished apartment building. The building overlooks the tracks leading away from the Erie-Lackawanna train terminal.
“Back in 1985 or ’86 was when they began, just as the real estate market started to put on the afterburners,” explained Cliff Steinbring, an area resident who is involved in the construction business and who has kept his eye on the project since renovations first began. “It was the biggest thing around, but it was also a big mystery. Work would start one year and stop the next. It just would never get finished.”
Initial attempts to renovate the building stalled out when a developer sold his interest after falling behind on his tax payments. The building was sold to Joseph Lucarelli and his Long Branch-based real estate company L.B.J. Realty in October of 1987. Under the terms of the sale, Lucarelli assumed a $7.25 million loan on the project from a now-defunct Clifton-based savings and loan.
But apparently Lucarelli did not intend to renovate the project. Federal prosecutors say that within four months the developer had secured an additional $8.75 million in funding from the savings and loan, which he used for personal expenses and to pay for construction on other properties.
Even though Lucarelli had taken out $16 million in loans from North Jersey Savings and Loan, tax records show that he neglected to pay the taxes on the Henderson Street property.
By November of 1989, the developer had racked up more than $200,000 in back taxes and $44,000 in penalties. While construction on the property ground to a halt, the city sold the lien to a third party for collection.
Lucarelli’s wheeling and dealings related to the property attracted the attention of federal law enforcement officials. In January of 1995, federal prosecutors indicted the developer under two counts of fraud. They charged that Lucarelli did “execute a scheme and artifice to defraud North Jersey Savings and Loan … by means of false and fraudulent purposes,” and that he “intentionally diverted money from the Henderson Street project to other construction projects and his own personal uses.”
In September of 1995, the developer pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud, paid a $40,000 fine and served 14 months in jail.
Lucarelli is now serving as a vice president with a local development group that plans to develop the Millennium Towers, a proposed 43-story, $150 million structure that will be located in Jersey City just a few blocks from 689 Henderson St.
After Lucarelli’s efforts to develop the property failed, the deed to 689 Henderson St. changed hands once before a group known as Hudson Street Lofts Urban Renewal, LLC purchased the right to develop it.
The new group is anxious to get to work, said Brian Doherty, a Jersey City attorney who represents them.
“The interior has to be completely re-done,” he explained Tuesday. “Construction would be likely to begin just after Labor Day.”
In addition to the 15 parking spaces that the developers plan to build on site, Doherty said that his clients have an agreement to lease an additional 60 spaces from Caulfield Associates, a business at 1 Henderson St.
“More spaces can be leased if more are needed,” explained Doherty. “Its like anything else; there is no requirement that residents of the building lease a space, but if they find that more people need spaces, they can always lease more. Behind the building is a railroad trestle, and underneath that is some old shops that they are going to knock down to make room for the parking. There is plenty of space.”
Local activists who have led the charge against further development in and around Hoboken in recent years said that they were not opposed to the renovation of the long-vacant structure.
“There is really nothing to object to,” explained Ron Hine, of the Coalition for a Better Waterfront. “A vacant building is being put back in use, and that’s good.”
Our Digital Archive from 2000 – 2016
