Residential Projects Will Add 558 Units

Originally appeared GlobeSt.com in on June 16, 2006

By Eric Peterson JERSEY CITY-The so-called Gold Coast, Hudson County’s Hudson River waterfront, has been starved for residential product, especially with urban professionals scared away by Manhattan’s high prices casting their sights across the river. Now, work is under way on three projects from two different developers that will add 558 units to the mix. The three projects are in addition to the three new high-rise residential towers that the Lefrak Organization recently announced it would add at its Newport mixed-use community.

“Demand for new luxury condominium residences has long outweighed supply,” says Adam Mermelstein, a principal of the New York City-based TreeTop Development, one of the developers involved. “These new homes will go a long way toward filling that void.”

The largest of the new projects is really two projects in one, it’s more rental than condo and it’s in this city’s downtown rather than on the waterfront. It consists of Grove Pointe, an 11-story, 67-unit condo property attached to a 30-story building that will house 458 upscale rental units when completed in the fall of 2007, according to Jonathan Kushner, a principal of Bridgewater, NJ-based SK Properties, which is developing it.

In the SK project, the condominium and rental buildings will be entered through separate lobbies. Amenities will include a two-story health club with a fitness center, yoga studio and lounge leading to an outdoor terrace and swimming pool; concierge/doorman and on-site enclosed parking. The building will also have 20,000 sf of ground-floor retail space.

Neighboring Hoboken, just to the north, is where TreeTop is adding 33 condo units in two buildings. For one, the four- and five-story Emsee will consist of 21 units on that city’s Jackson Street near the CBD. Studio One Architects designed it. The site’s abandoned former residential building has been torn down to make way for the new construction.

And TreeTop is building Ariel Square, a four-story building designed by the locally-based Dean Marchetto Architects that will add a dozen condo units. The site formerly held a C-Town supermarket, which has similarly been razed to make way for the new building. “Hoboken has long been a popular destination for young professionals in search of homes,” Mermelstein says.