Tag Archives: Carriage City Plaza

Carriage City Plaza, City Council, tax appeals, taxes

Tax appeal settlement approved

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City Council approved a tax appeal settlement Monday night with Carriage City Properties. Details on the settlement can be found in this earlier post.

Property taxes would be paid whether units are occupied or not, and the developer would be responsible for taxes on any units it owns, said City Administrator/Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier.

During the Feb. 3 pre-meeting conference of City Council, Third Ward Councilman Jerry Scaturo raised the issue of Carriage City Properties leasing its unsold units. Sky View began marketing a lease-to-buy option, starting at $1,250 a month for one-bedroom units.

Pelissier said it’s not a concern from the standpoint of wanting to see people moving into the community. “It’s better than having…units sitting empty,” he said. If the units are occupied, the $10,000 fee owed to the Redevelopment Agency should be paid, said Pelissier, adding that the agency is seeking is a formal request from the developer to clarify the redevelopment agreement. Originally the developer, Elizabeth-based Silcon Group., was to pay the $10,000 fee upon closing of each unit.

About 57 units have closed at Sky View, according to the Parking Authority records, while the Redevelopment Agency has been paid for 46 units and 78 temporary certificates of occupancy (TCO) have been issued by the city, Pelissier said. It’s unclear how many units are rented, he said. The 16-story complex has more than 200 units in all.
By my count, about 48 units have sold (less than a quarter) at an average of almost $292,000, a high of $444,000 and a low of $216,350 (which happens to be the most recent sale I’m aware of).

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City Council, tax appeals, taxes

Settlement near on tax appeal

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Carriage City Plaza will pay almost $1 million annually in property taxes under a tax appeal settlement reached with the city.

The settlement, which is expected to gain City Council approval Monday night, calls for Carriage City to pay $350,000 in taxes for its partial assessment for 2008. In addition, it will pay $100,000 toward the approximately $350,000 that’s owed to the city as part of intersection improvements and signalization, among other things.

Starting with 2009, property taxes for the site will be about $978,000 at full assessment, City Administrator/Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier after Tuesday night’s conference council meeting. The total assessment for the property is about $59 million, with $2 million for the retail space, $6 million for the hotel and the remainder for the 220 residential units. By comparison, Pelissier said, Merck & Co.’s property is assessed at about $277 million.

The reduced assessments primarily came in the residential components of the project, Pelissier said, adding that once the retail portions are fully developed, those parts will see increased assessments. The original assessment was about $60 million, which would have generated $1.2 million in property tax revenue.

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Carriage City Plaza, Polls, Rahway

Carriage City Plaza tops 2008 stories

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Blog readers voted overwhelmingly for the opening of Carriage City Plaza and the Hotel Indigo as the biggest redevelopment story of 2008.

Opening of Carriage City Plaza, 54 percent (37/68)
The slow pace of redevelopment, 19 percent (13/68)
The Savoy coming to a halt, 8 percent (6/68)
Reopening of the Union County Arts Center, 8 percent (6/68)
The fast pace of redevelopment, 5 percent (4/68)
Tabulation of the Rahway Survey, 2 percent (2/68)

While most readers pointed to Carriage City, there were almost a third of them who pointed to signs of the slowing economy, like The Savoy coming to a halt and the slow pace of redevelopment. Keep in mind that the survey is far from scientific at all.

The new poll will be up after the Super Bowl. It’s a repeat from last year but we have a few more readers so I thought it’d be interesting to take another look.

“Who makes your favorite pizza in Rahway?”
Brooklyn Pizza
Gino’s
Michelino’s
Nancy’s Townhouse
Papa Vito
Rahway Pizza
Ted’s
Tony’s

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Downtown, Parking, Rahway

No go on parking deck expansion

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Good news for some Sky View residents: They get to keep their view. The Parking Authority passed on the idea of adding two levels to the existing parking deck at Lewis and Main streets.

Executive Director Donald Andersen said commissioners had concerns about the cost effectiveness and shutting down a large portion of the garage during construction, as well as possibly Main and Lewis streets. Construction probably would have last four to five months in either case and two levels of the garage would be closed.

Adding one level would have cost $2.6 million and created another 85 spaces ($31,000 per) while two levels would have cost $4.8 million and added 170 spaces ($29,000 per). The existing six-story parking deck, which opened four years ago with 524 spaces, cost $11 million (which works out to about $21,000/space).

Commissioners discussed the “Vertical Expansion Feasibility Draft Report,” prepared by Tim Haahs & Associates of Blue Bell, Pa., at their November meeting.

Andersen said the parking study commissioned last summer will hopefully be completed by the end of March.

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Downtown, library

State of the City 2009

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Though I was unable to attend Monday’s City Council meeting, I did get a copy of Mayor James Kennedy’s State of the City address. The mayor is among a long list of officials looking for help from the feds.

“I retain optimism that this slowdown will only be temporary and the incoming administration of President-Elect Obama will provide long-overdue federal funds to invest in our roads, sewers, parks and other vital elements of our infrastructure,” Kennedy said. “Unlike other municipalities, Rahway has many projects that are already approved by the authorizing boards and agencies. Our improvements and investments will enhance our redevelopment opportunities. So that the ‘shovels can hit the ground’ as soon as the economy rebounds and our continuing redevelopment efforts will restart in a period of months instead of years,” he said.

Among the projects Kennedy cited as “ready to begin” are the 88-unit Renaissance at Rahway and 116-unit Station Place. The Savoy, he said, will “restart construction when additional financing is obtained.” (Photo at left)

As for other redevelopment-related highlights in his remarks, the mayor reviewed the various ongoing projects that you’ve read about here before:

— New ratables increased the tax base by $30 million for the nine-month period in 2008. A full year on the books is expected to create $42 million in 2009. A little perspective: ratables increased by about $30,000,000; the city’s total valuation is about $1,500,000,000 ($1.5 billion). The added ratables — mainly attributed to Carriage City Plaza, Luciano’s and Riverwalk — generated about $900,000 in additional tax revenues for the city.

— In addition to the planned 1,000-seat amphitheater at the former Hamilton Laundry site, and development of the former Bell Telephone building into a performing arts space and black box theatre, the former Elizabethtown Gas building is expected to be purchased and house a “first-rate art school as well as a co-op gallery venue.”

— “The 40,000 square feet of condominium space above the library was sold last year, and will be converted into office space sometime this year.” The library opened in 2004 with the idea of eventually selling the top two floors for office space. No word on whether the sale netted the $3.5 million that was expected at the time to help offset the cost of the $7.4-million facility. [UPDATE: SDI Technologies already paid $3.2 million to the city for this project, according to City Administrator Peter Pelissier.]

— The city is “exploring a partnership with the Parking Authority to construct a 300- to 500-space parking deck on Lot B, to complement the proposed Westbury housing/retail development next door.” We wrote about this study in August but there was never any mention of the number of spaces. Originally, The Westbury was planned with a five-story, 324-space parking facility.

For some historical perspective, there are a few paragraphs about the mayor’s 2005 State of the City address here.

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Uncategorized

Welcome back, Poll

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We took a peek at the top posts of 2008 by number of page views over the weekend. Tonight we’re bringing back the poll after a months-long absence and letting you vote: What was the biggest story of 2008 on the blog? Obviously, the decline in the housing market and the collapse of the economy in general had an effect locally, but what was the most significant development locally?

* The opening of Carriage City Plaza/Hotel Indigo
* Work at The Savoy coming to a halt
* Tabulation of the Rahway Survey
* The reopening of the Union County Arts Center
* The slow pace of redevelopment in general
* The fast pace of redevelopment in general
* Other

There’s always that “Other” category, so feel free to explain what that might be to you.

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Carriage City Plaza, Commercial, Downtown, Retail

Cuppy’s? Cuppy’s? Bueller?

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Back in June, Cuppy’s signed a lease for one of the first retail spaces at Carriage City Plaza. At the time, its Web site touted locations “coming soon” to East Brunswick, Phillipsburg and Whippany. Earlier this week, when I checked their Web site, they were down to zero locations “coming soon” in New Jersey. Last night, they were just down. Trying to get to the site, I was greeted with a “Page Load Error.” Not sure if that’s temporary but fear not, the Cuppy’s MySpace page is still active (although he hasn’t logged in since September).

A quick Web search reveals quite a bit of info about Cuppy’s, some of it dating back well over a year. And not much of it good, if it’s accurate, especially if you consider the Web sites are called Ripoff Report and Unhappy Franchisee. Here’s some franchise info, which indicates required liquid capital of $100,000 and net worth of $50,000. The complaints pre-date a change in ownership this past May.

It’s not all bad news though. Apparently, Cuppy’s can make it in South Africa, Mechanicsburg, Pa. and Wilmington, N.C., among others.

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Uncategorized

Someone’s interested in The Chowder Pot

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Someone must be interested in buying The Chowder Pot, the long-closed bar in Lincoln Plaza near the Colonia border.

There were several keyword searches the week before last that led to Rahway Rising, namely, “how can I purchase the retail property of the chowder pot in rahway,” and “chowder pot rahway nj out of business.” Another one of interest was “are there any available liquor license in rahway nj.” Is there nothing Google Analytics can’t do?

I’m told that The Chowder Pot’s liquor license was sold at auction following bankruptcy proceedings but has yet to be transferred.

There also were 14 keyword searches the same week for “Wolff & Samson Carriage City” that eventually found the blog, though not all were new visitors. The trend continued last week with 8 searches, though none were considered “new visitors.” The West Orange-based law firm represents Carriage City Plaza and it’s the third week in a row that a number of keyword searches made it to the blog. One visitor’s keyword search was “problems at Carriage City Plaza.” [Dec. 5 update: I’m told Wolff & Samson no longer represents Carriage City, “after both parties were not pleased with each other’s work.”]

There’s also the keyword searches you wouldn’t expect would find their way to the blog, like “How to wash laundry in the river.” Sorry, can’t help ya there.

***

I’m blogging early this week from the West Coast so the posts might arrive at odd times and I’m also catching up on local items. A regular reader already commented on this nj.com story about downtowns in this downturn, but I thought it’d be worth linking to; though it doesn’t mention Rahway, it’s relevant.

Then there’s this report about the St. Georges Apartments selling for $3 million, in which Rahway is mentioned as “very attractive to investors because there is no rent control and it has an impressive downtown redevelopment area taking form as we speak.”

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