The Beacon, a $350 million 1,200-unit condominium project being built on the site of the old Jersey City Medical Center at Baldwin Avenue and Montgomery Street, initially scheduled to be built in three phases, was approved last week to take eight phases to complete.
Condos would be available for purchase in 2007 when the first phase of construction is finished.
At the Planning Board meeting on Oct. 11, principals involved in the Beacon project gave a presentation to the board in revising the building plan from three to eight phases.
Applications from the developer, Metrovest Equities, called for the eight-phase plan plus the removal of a building and the parking garage in the first phase of development and placing each of the 10 buildings of the former medical complex in a separate lot.
The board approved the applications 4-0. These approvals came a week before the Beacon project’s ribbon-cutting this past Tuesday.Let’s build out
Eugene Paolino, the attorney for the Beacon project, said at the meeting that the original three-phase site plan the Planning Board approved in March seemed feasible then, but the developer recently determined that eight phases would allow for greater flexibility in developing each section of the complex.
Paolino also said more flexibility would be necessary to allow the developer to choose what to build according to the current market demand and financing from banks.
Eric Steinfeld, the architect for the project, said the first three phases of the newly proposed eight-phase plan, which would include building roadways and streetscapes within the complex, will proceed without deviating from the initial plan. But phases four through eight would allow for possible changes in the initial building agendas.
Board Commissioner Jeni Branum was concerned that the new construction plan would allow for “jumping around” on a project already approved for a certain number of phases.
Paolino responded that the developer met numerous times with the Planning Department to amend the phases for the project, and that flexibility would require them to go back to the Planning Board if they change the direction of the project during construction.
Planning Department Director Robert Cotter said he was satisfied with extending the project from three to eight phases and that it complies with the redevelopment plan.
“It’s simply a matter of where the markets want to go with phases four, five, six, seven and eight. What is important to me are phases one, two and three, where the bulk of the project is built. Flexibility in the final phases makes a lot of sense.”
The first phase of the project will involve construction of a mixed-use facility with 314 residential units out of the 1,200 total and 64,821 square feet of office and retail space. There will also be a parking garage with 1,049 spaces and the construction of a central courtyard, a dog run and a restaurant.
The buildings within the complex to be redeveloped in this phase will be the center building at the old Baldwin Avenue main entrance and old medical buildings nearby, to be named the Rialto and Capitol. Why the change?
George Filopoulous, the principal partner in Metrovest Equities, told the board that other factors figured into requesting changes in the redevelopment plan.
“A lot of it has to do with the façade and conditions of some of the buildings,” he said.
Filopoulous claimed some of the buildings, such as the Margaret Hague Maternity building, have suffered a significant amount of damage over the years and will require more renovation work than other buildings in the complex. The increased phases would allow for more time to rehabilitate these buildings.
Branum asked the developer if they are seeking the more flexible plan because it would give them the option to sell any of the Medical Center buildings midway into construction for any reason. Filopoulous answered that was not the case. Branum was not entirely convinced, but voted in favor of the new phasing plan.
The entire board approved all the applications with the condition that no advertisement banners for condos should appear on the sides of the Medical Center buildings since the applications did not include displaying the banners.
Cotter also said the developer must also adhere to conditions set in the agreement between the medical center and the state’s Historic Preservation Commission to preserve the buildings’ facades. Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com