People may not realize that over the next five years, 2,044 units of new luxury housing could be on the way uptown, as four major development projects are planned or proposed for the city’s northeast waterfront.
The projects are:
- The Maxwell House project, 10th to 12th streets on Hudson Street, with 832 units approved.
- The Shipyard by the Applied Development Corporation, where 841 units have already been built. Applied has approvals for 319 more units for a total project size of 1,160 units. The Shipyard is north of 12th Street on Hudson.
- BDLJ Associates’ "Hoboken Cove," River Street to Park Avenue, north of 14th BDLJ already completed and opened the 525-unit Hudson Tea Building and has approvals to build and additional 343 units. BDLJ is currently seeking approvals for an additional 410 units, for a proposed total of 753 new residential units that could begin construction in 2004. If approved, the entire project would total 1,278 units.
- The northernmost project is 1600 Park Ave., between the Park and Willow Avenue bridges, which has an application before the Zoning Board for 140 units.
Enough of a mix?
During an interview Thursday, Mayor David Roberts touted the expansion on the waterfront as mixed-use development where housing is intermingled with businesses, both office and retail. He said developers will be paying for the creation and maintenance of the largest new parcels of public open space in over a century.
"Without these new developments, it would be impossible to triple the amount of open space in the city," said Roberts. For instance, the Maxwell House development will include a six-acre park.
The city’s master plan draft that was released last month has a goal of tripling the amount of open space in the city in the next 10 years.
"We’re going to developers and asking, ‘What kind of benefits are you going to give our community?’ " said Roberts.
He said that the Hoboken Cove and Maxwell House projects alone include plans for nearly 10 acres of publicly accessible open space.
The critics of the city’s development vision claim that it is overcrowded with too high of a percentage of residential units, which causes stress to local traffic, parking, sewerage and electrical systems. A reliance on residential development, they add, also eradicates the benefits of a diversified tax base.
"I think there’s too much residential and too little commercial development [in Hoboken]," said uptown resident Alice Crozier last week. "It seems like all the developers want to build residential units because they can get their money out quickly."
She added that the city needs to do more to promote commercial growth in the few areas of town that are left to develop, like the city’s Northwest Redevelopment Area.
Roberts responded that all of the proposed or approved projects do have retail, office and open space components.
He added that the master plan also favors "this type" of mixed-use development, including live/work spaces, ground floor cultural uses, retail and commercial uses.
Roberts also said that the waterfront must be looked at holistically, not via just one quadrant. He said that in the one mile of Hoboken waterfront, there is a great deal of diversity in land use. He said there is office space (the 1.1 million square foot Waterfront Corporate Center), parks (Pier A and Castle Point Park), and transportation infrastructure (the light rail).
The projects
The Maxwell House project is a 1,090,000 square foot, 832-unit development on the site of the former Maxwell House coffee factory. It includes 160,000 square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of retail. (See opposite front page story.)
"The Maxwell House project is the perfect example of synergy between the public and the private," said Roberts. "The city and developers were able to work together to develop a plan that will greatly improve the quality of life of the city’s residents."
The Shipyard planned unit development is approved for 1,160 residences, retail shops, a ferry stop and a marina on the Hudson River. It begins north of 12th Street. About three-quarters (841 units) of the entire project is now complete, with the developers, The Applied Companies, planning to begin construction on the final 319 units in the near future.
The BDLJ project got Planning Board approval in September of 1998 for an 868-unit, 1.18 million square-foot development on the site, with 5.9 acres of open space, of which 4.1 acres would be publicly accessible.
The developers have completed the luxury Tea Building, which started leasing its 525 apartments in 2001. BDLJ Associates owns the Tea Building and much of the land north of 14th Street, except those buildings that directly abut 14th Street, including the <i>Hudson Reporter</I> building and City Bistro.
To the west, the property is bounded by Park Avenue and the Park on Park garage on Park Avenue, and on the north by the Weehawken border. Most of BDLJ’s land, excluding the Tea Building, is currently parking lots, abandoned industrial buildings, or non-accessible grassy areas.
Since then, BDLJ expanded its local holdings by purchasing a parcel of land between Garden and Bloomfield streets north of 14th Street. This land acquisition has prompted BDLJ to rethink its plans for the area. The developers currently have permission to build 343 more units of housing on the surrounding lands, but are currently before the Planning Board to expand that to 753.
The amended plan also calls for 6.3 acres of open space, of which 4.5 will be fully accessible to the public as approximately 1,500 parking spaces and 67,291 square feet of retail space.
1600 Park
The proposed nine-story mixed-use building, which would be built on the vacant lot that straddles the Weehawken-Hoboken border, has an application before the city’s Zoning Board for 140 condos.
The developer, Stanford Weiss, has promised to dedicate about 26,000 square feet to Hoboken and Weehawken for a park. The property is partially in Hoboken and partially in Weehawken.
The project was scheduled to have a hearing Wednesday night, but was canceled. According to Fred Bado, the city’s director of Community Development, the developer is considering submitting an amended application. While the number of housing units will probably stay the same, according to Bado, the non-residential space might be changing. The most recent plans called for a 32-lane bowling alley, but according to Bado, a new proposal might call for that space to be used as artist work spaces, art galleries, office or retail space similar to that which is planned at the Monroe Center for the Arts on the city’s west side.
One of the biggest hurdles that Weiss has to overcome is a city zoning law that was adopted in June of 1989. In that year, the property was zoned for industrial use. The only way that a residential development is permitted in this zone is for "Planned Unit Developments" on more than 10 acres of property. Weiss’s property is only two acres. This means that Weiss has to go before the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment in an attempt to get a "use variance" approved. A variance is permission to deviate from zoning guidelines.
The board can’t grant variances if they are detrimental to the public good or impair the intent of the zoning ordinance.
"Building more residential units in an area that is already glutted with them has a clear negative impact on the community," said Planning Board member Kimberly Fox recently when speaking out against 1600 Park. "It increases the demand for city services and infrastructure that commercial use would not, it removes the benefit of a diversified tax base, and it increases traffic directly adjacent to the Lincoln Tunnel, making your morning commute even worse."
Fox added that the master plan draft, which the mayor says he supports, recommends increasing the percentage of office and commercial projects in the city.
"Granting a use variance from commercial to residential would run counter to this recommendation," said Fox.