Meadowlands sees housing boom at former industrial sites

Several projects have gone up, or are in the pipeline in the Meadowlands, where developers say potential tenants can get convenient access to New York City without paying rising Gold Coast rents.

BERGEN COUNTY -- The building boom that swept the Hudson River waterfront is moving west, with several new housing projects or in the works in the Meadowlands, where developers say potential tenants can get convenient access to New York City without paying rising Gold Coast rents.

The Meadowlands has train stations, access to the New Jersey Turnpike and Lincoln Tunnel. The housing market in the region has always been good, Brian Whitmer, a senior director at real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, but homes are pricy and towns are well developed, leaving little room to build.

But developers have taken advantage of vacant former industrial properties, betting that the cost of cleaning them up will be offset by the income generated by new apartments.

The area south of the intersection of Routes 17 and 3 was once home to a mix of industrial and commercial uses. Avalon was the first to build multifamily homes in the area, buying a longtime Cadillac dealership in 2004.

The area has since become home to a satellite campus of Bergen Community College, and more housing development has followed. J.G. Petrucci, a developer with offices in Asbury Park, opened Station at Lyndhurst, a 192-unit luxury apartment on Chubb Avenue, in February, and now plans to build another 218 units down the street at a site formerly occupied by Daewoo Electronics.

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/09/meadowlands_megamall_lands_2_major_department_stores.html

"With the Station, and the next building which will hopefully be built, you're actually starting to develop a residential community there," Tom O'Connor, an attorney with the Waters, McPherson, McNeill who represents Petrucci and other Meadowlands developers, said.

Lisa Kaplan, vice president of leasing and marketing for Russo Development, which has apartments in Lyndhurst and Kearny, said the new wave of housing developments has brought the pools, yoga rooms, billiard tables and other features common in developments along the Hudson.

"One of the things Russo did was we really brought a lot of the amenities that you're seeing on the Gold Coast," she said.

Russo, based in Carlstadt, opened the first of 296 units at Vermella Lyndhurst in 2013. The company opened another Vermella-branded apartment in Kearny earlier this year and is close to opening another 400 units in Harrison.

The wave is moving farther north now, to a trio of brownfields in Rutherford and East Rutherford. The largest is Highland Cross, in Rutherford, a 30-acre site located between Route 17 and the Bergen rail line.

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/10/aquarium_legoland_coming_to_meadowlands_complex.html

Lincoln Equities Group has been attempting to develop the property since 1998, after being appointed to redevelop the site by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and Rutherford. Lincoln has cleaned the the water and soil at the site to a residential standard and now plans to build 500 units of housing, 125,000 square feet of retail and two hotels at the site.

While Lincoln has owned the property since before the current wave of development, Joel Bergstein believes the development will serve the same group of renters looking for cheaper prices than those offered in Hoboken and Jersey City.

In East Rutherford, Sterling Properties plans to build 208 units of housing on the corner of Central and Paterson avenues on a long-abandoned property once occupied by a roofing company. The plans are still pending local approval and the company must demolish the existing buildings and clean up the property by monitoring the groundwater and cap and remove contaminated soil.

Jeffrey Garfinkel, director of acquisitions and development for Sterling, hopes the company will receive  payment in lieu of taxes agreement from East Rutherford to offset the cost of cleaning a site that's sat dormant for nearly 20 years.

"It's great for the community because it's been blighted for some time," Garfinkel said.

Plans to redevelop the former Matheson Tri-Gas property on Paterson Plank Road are also under review. The site has already been remediated to some extent, but developers Catalyst Development Partners and Northlight Capital plan clean it to a higher standard to build close to 400 units of housing.

There are other hurdles for developers. Stephen Parnes, a principal with Catalyst, said the approval process has always been difficult in the Meadowlands, and things are only more muddled after the merger between the Meadowlands Commission, which is the planning authority for the region, and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

But the market and the area make it worth the risk, Parnes said.

"There's a lack of housing and a lack of housing opportunities in the area," he said.

East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella is wary of the development. He's worried about the impact new residents will have on local schools.

"I think it should be more hotel, commercial business in the Meadowlands," he said. "I think we're wasting valuable property on housing."

But Whitmer, of Cushman & Wakefield, believes the area will continue to be a draw for developers, especially after American Dream opens.

"It absolutely feeds on itself," he said. "The more people in the area, the more it energizes it, and it supports more restaurants, more nightlife, more retail."