Once and Future Journal Square

LONG AWAITED
The 1.5-acre site in Journal Square in Jersey City where two skyscrapers will hold 1,000 units of housing, a new retail center and five floors of parking. Construction is expected to start later this year.

Originally appeared in the New York Times on 01/28/07

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

JERSEY CITY
JOURNAL SQUARE — which was once the centerpiece of vibrant downtown — slouched into seediness after the mass defection of middle-class families to the suburbs more than a half-century ago.

It has been waiting ever since for a comeback, at least in the view of those who knew it when. And that group would certainly include Lowell Harwood, 77, who as a boy helped out at a busy parking lot on Journal Square, and jostled through crowds to get to the movies at one of three grand theaters there.

Now Mr. Harwood, the managing partner of his family's third-generation firm, Harwood Properties, is engineering the hoped-for comeback.

Last month, city officials unanimously approved Harwood Properties' plan to revitalize an entire city block that had fallen into decrepitude and gone onto fast-food heaven. (Mc-Donald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a small Mexican restaurant occupy three prominent storefronts where a hotel, a bakery and an old-style cafeteria once thrived.)

Two residential skyscrapers would anchor the "new" block with more than 1,000 units, a retail center, five floors of parking, a rooftop fitness center — and even a rooftop dog run.

"We're going to bring it back," Mr. Harwood said. From his" company's eighth-floor office in the building next to The Jersey Journal, the newspaper for which the square is named, he looked down at the 1.5-acre site across the street, Journal Square Plaza.

"All the excitement," he added. "The people on the streets. It will be a renaissance like in New York City neighborhoods, in Harlem and other places you would have never thought people would be dying to move into again."

Right now, parts of the Journal Square plan are in flux — especially the issue of whether to build two towers right away, or build one at a time, and the question of condominiums versus rentals.

"We're leaning toward building the bigger tower first — 545 feet and 51 stories," Mr. Harwood said. "We're leaning toward more rentals than condos, given the market right now — but we're just leaning, not decided, because the market changes all the time."

Scott Harwood, Mr. Harwood's nephew, who is a partner in the company, said the final decision about condos or rentals might not come until the start of construction later this year. The company is working to persuade various current tenants in several buildings — purchased in 2005 from a developer whose rehab plans had fizzled — to relocate.

Besides the fast-food restaurants, there are a number of dollar stores and check-cashing joints. The Harwoods, though, are looking for more upscale shops for the two floors of retailing in their new complex. "We would also like to get a grocery store in the building," the senior Mr. Harwood said.

They see the future Journal Square as an urban neighborhood, populated by young professionals, many commuting to Wall Street and Midtown.

The residential towers will consist mostly of one-bedroom units, with some studios and two-bedrooms, Lowell Harwood said. Neither purchase prices nor rental rates have been determined yet, he said. But he added that he expected a typical one- bedroom to rent for roughly $2,000 a month.

Each unit will have a washer-dryer and hardwood floors. There will be ample parking in the building — 674 spaces, to be built on floors above the retail level but below the residential towers. And most apartments will have far-reaching views taking in the Statue of Liberty, the Hudson River and some part of the Manhattan skyline, Mr. Harwell said.

The Harwood site is adjacent to the Journal Square Transportation Center, where commuter bus lines operate, and an adjoining PATH train station. The train ride is 12 minutes to the World Trade Center and 20 minutes to Penn Station.

The site also abuts the four-story Hudson Community College building on Sip Avenue.

Journal Square was once home to three highly ornate movie palaces —the Loew's Theater, the Stanley Theater and the State Theater — all within two or three blocks of the redevelopment site.

Four years ago, the State Theater was demolished and a new 12-story, 130-unit apartment building rose on n the site — the first new structure at Journal Square in more than 20 years. Harwood Properties was one of a group of local developers that were partners on the project.

"The one-bedroom units there were snapped up, and today the building is fully leased," Mr. Harwood said, "which is why we are going to put predominantly one-bedroom units in this development."

The Journal Square redevelopment effort started almost a decade before the State Theater project, with the busy PATH station as the catalyst. In 1999, a pedestrian area was created to set the area off, featuring fountains, old-fashioned lampposts and a statue of Jackie Robinson, who made his debut as the first black player in professional baseball in a game at Jersey City's old Roosevelt Stadium in 1946.

The Harwood family business began in Manhattan, in the 1920s, when Lowell's grandparents, Wolfe and Sarah Harwood, bought a trolley car garage and transformed it into an automobile garage.

The business went on to acquire 35 New York City parking lots, then lost them all during the Depression.

In 1936 Lowell's mother, Laura, decided to rent a parking lot in Jersey City — the one where Lowell worked as a boy — and the Harwoods went on to become deeply entrenched in Jersey City real estate and development.

Today, Mr. Harwood runs his business with Scott and another nephew, Brett Harwood. He has built a number of large commercial and residential buildings in New York City, Boston and Philadelphia.

In addition to the Journal Square project, he and a partner are working on plans to build a mixed-use residential building at the southwest corner of 44th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.