Tallest Building In NJ Planned For Jersey City Waterfront

By Jim Kennelly
Journal staff writer
The Jersey Journal
Saturday, April 8, 2000

The firm expects to break ground at 30 Hudson Street in mid-May on a waterfront parcel bounded by Greene Street, Essex Street and Hudson Street near Exchange Place in the Colgate Corporate Center.

When completed in the spring of 2003, 30 Hudson will dwarf New Jersey's current tallest building, 101 Hudson, which is just a stone's throw away. That building stands 592 feet tall.

"We're excited about this project and committed to build a wonderful building not only for Goldman Sachs, but for the whole community," Tom McAdam, Goldman Sachs head of corporate services, said about the new facility.

Goldman Sachs is an investment bank that manages more than $500 billion in assets. It employs 17,000 people in 49 countries around the world and had net profits of $2.6 billion in 1999. Approximately 6,000 Goldman Sachs employees will work in the new Jersey City complex.

30 Hudson will be connected to a smaller building, a corporate conference center next door at 50 Hudson Street, by a sort of mega-atrium that will enclose the end of Morris Street in several stories of glass. Cesar Pelli & Associates, the architects for the project, call the mega-atrium "Crystal Hall."

In total, the Goldman Sachs complex will add approximately 1.5 million square feet of new "Class A" commercial space to the Jersey City waterfront, which has about 11 million feet total of "Class A" space right now. The building's 45 floors will sit atop a huge atrium that will form the base of the tower.

The company also owns a parcel at 55 Hudson that is zoned for another 600,000 square feet but won't likely be built on until 30 and 50 Hudson are complete.

The 30 Hudson supertower will house front-office operations for Goldman Sachs. The company's Investment Management Division will move there from Manhattan.

Goldman Sachs will apply to the city for a 20-year tax abatement for the complex and it is guaranteed an 80-percent rebate on all state income taxes generated on the site for the next 10 years, under a deal with Trenton.

Goldman Sachs revealed the plans for the buildings Thursday evening at a meeting of the Historic Paulus Hook Neighborhood Association, which borders the site of the old Colgate Palmolive Soap factory. The 20-acre site has become the hottest corporate real estate on the east coast, according to industry observers.

Goldman Sachs representatives attended the neighborhood meeting with nearly a dozen architects, contractors and engineers in tow, all armed with slides, models and maps. Company officials indicated they did it to be a good neighbor.

However, the project requires amendments to the Colgate Redevelopment Plan that must be approved by the City Council, so the aggressive effort to sell the project also gave the company the chance to pre-empt any political opposition that could develop against it.

Specifically, the 30 Hudson supertower exceeds the zoning for the site by more than 100 feet; the Crystal Hall will require the permanent closing of the end of Morris Street, and the entry way to 30 Hudson will require the taking of a quarter acre from the planned Veterans Waterfront Park.

Goldman representatives hoped to convince Paulus Hook residents that they will minimize the impact that the three years of construction will have on the development-deluged neighborhood. The once-quiet community is still reeling from light rail construction, and the rise of two commercial and four other residential projects now underway in the area.

Residents are still furious about the noise, dust, vibration, traffic and parking hassles the last three years of the boom has caused them.

"We know that maybe we're going to suffer for the development sins of other past projects," said McAdam, "but we're going to prove to you that we'll work with you to make this a tremendous positive for the community."

The company's general contractor for the project said they have put in all sub-contractor's bid specifications, a "three strikes requirement," which warns, fines and then expels any worker who does not follow the construction policies the city and the community set through an oversight board.

The company also said it is willing to barge out much of the debris from the project rather than have it carried out by truck. In exchange, Goldman wants the city to allow it to do construction on some Saturdays.

Goldman's architects promise that when the complex is complete, it will include ground-floor retail around the entire complex to keep the streetscape alive. All 1,500 parking spaces for the two buildings will be below grade in a four-story, underground garage.

"This will be much more than an office building," said Fred Clark, a principal in Goldman's Architect, Cesar Pelli & Associates. "It will become a wonderful piece of Paulus Hook's remarkable history, and of its community."

Clark believes the Crystal Hall section of the complex will become a space for concerts and community activities.

The neighborhood association's membership seemed to be torn about the project -- impressed with the design and the professionalism of the Goldman team and aware of the huge positive impact it will have on the city's economy and image -- but fearful about the amount of disruption the construction of such an enormous building will cause.

"I'm supportive of it," said Linda Pelligrino, president of the HPNA. "It will mean a lot of good for the city. It's impossible not to see that, but I can't deny I'm worried about what it will do to us right here in this part of the city