Tag Archives: apartments

City Council, City Hall Plaza, library, taxes

Meridia PILOT, redevelopment agreement OK’d

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The developer of the proposed Meridia Water’s Edge will pay $216,000 annually — roughly $2,000 per unit — to the city for 10 years in lieu of regular property taxes that normally would be split among the city, county and school district.

The City Council unanimously approved the Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) at its meeting Dec. 12 [Ordinance 29-11], with no comment or discussion among members of the governing body. The lone public comment during the meeting came from Patrick Cassio, the local Republican chairman former mayor candidate, who bemoaned the fact that the PILOT avoids any payments to the school district. Union County will get some portion of the payment.

How much the property would have normally paid in property taxes, or how the $216,000 figure was arrived at, is unclear. Currently, the vacant land is assessed at $161,700 but generates no tax revenue since it’s owned by the Redevelopment Agency, which does not pay taxes. (Theoretically, the assessed value would generate a property tax bill of about $9,322, based on the current overall tax rate of 5.765 per $100 of assessed value).

Capodagli Property Company will acquire the three-quarter acre property (Block 305, Lot 5.04) from the Redevelopment Agency for $1 million, minus a credit for removing soil on the site left from the construction of the library a decade ago. The agency approved a redevelopment agreement at its meeting this month. Principal George Capodagli told the Redevelopment Agency this month that the cost of soil removal was about $160,000, which would make for a final sale price of about $840,000. City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier initially anticipated the cost would be upward of $250,000.

The five-story, 108-unit Water’s Edge will have about 87 parking spaces on the ground floor and will use 21 parking spaces in the adjacent lot owned by the condominium association that operates the library building. The rental development will have 56 two-bedroom units and 52 one-bedroom units.

The Planning Board gave its approval of the plan last month, and the City Council amended the redevelopment plan to include the site. Only one council member objected at the time, based on concerns about not requiring some type of LEED-certified construction.

Water’s Edge will be the second project undertaken by Capodagli Property Company in Rahway. The Pompton Plains-based firm completed Meridia Grand, an 88-unit rental complex last year, which sold for $19 million several months ago. Capodagli also is in negotiations to acquire the former Savoy property, which has been stalled for many years. The firm is expected to present a concept plan for The Savoy site to the Redevelopment Agency early next year.

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Apartments, Wheatena

Wheatena development scrapped

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Due to unfavorable market conditions, the developer of the former Wheatena site on Elizabeth Avenue issued a notice to terminate the redevelopment agreement.

Continue reading Wheatena development scrapped →

Apartments, City Hall Plaza, Redevelopment Agency

Officials meeting with Water’s Edge developer

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City officials in recent weeks have met twice with a developer whose project was tabled by the City Council last month.

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Apartments, St Georges Avenue

Work begins again on Brookside apartments

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Reconstruction of Brookside at Rahway, the St. Georges Avenue apartment complex that was destroyed by fire in January, began earlier this month.

Work on the site originally began in summer 2009, with construction starting in earnest the next year, and the 50-unit rental complex was nearly completed when the fire, an incident local police concluded was arson, occurred. Demolition of the three-story structure took several weeks in the spring. No word on when completion might be expected.

UPDATED OCT. 11: Jim Sisto of Fanwood-based United Excavating/Sisto Realty, which is building the project, said boxes started getting placed on the site Sept. 12 and are expected to be finished this week. He’s hoping to open for business by April 1.

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In case you somehow missed it, here’s the story this week from nj.com detailing an ethics complaint filed by City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier against Mayor Rick Proctor, in which Pelissier alleges the mayor encouraged him to hire his wife.

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Police confirm St. Georges Ave fire was arson

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(Taken about 7 a.m. today)

Rahway police today confirmed that the Jan. 4 fire that destroyed a St. Georges Avenue apartment complex under construction was arson.

“We determined it was an arson within a few days but weren’t prepared at that time to release that information,” Police Chief John Rodger said in response to another of our inquiries. He declined to go into further detail about the investigation. “Other than telling you that it was declared an arson, there isn’t a lot I can discuss about the fire,” he said.

(Taken about 7:30 p.m. today)

The 50-unit development, dubbed Brookside at Rahway, broke ground more than a year ago and was nearly completed, with leasing expected to begin as early as this spring. Instead, demolition of the three-story building started this week and could take as much as a month to complete. Jim Sisto of Fanwood-based United Excavating/Sisto Realty said he plans to rebuild after the structure is demolished down to the foundation and steel.

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Demolition of fire-damaged apartments to begin

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Almost three months after a fire gutted the nearly-completed Brookside at Rahway apartments on St. Georges Avenue, demolition is scheduled to begin Thursday on the three-story structure.

The plan is to demolish down to the foundation and steel and eventually start the process of rebuilding, according to Jim Sisto of Fanwood-based United Excavating, the firm behind the development of the 50-unit rental complex. Once demolition gets under way, he expects it could take about a month, weather permitting, to take down the structure. If anyone is able to take some photos or video of the demolition, feel free to share.

A four-alarm blaze tore through the building on the morning of Jan. 4. The cause of the fire is still unclear. Police John Rodger said as recently as today he had no new information that he could share. Sisto said he hasn’t gotten any answers from authorities or insurance companies as to the cause of the fire. He believes the cause must be arson given how meticulous he said he keeps his job sites, and there was nothing on site that would have sparked a fire.
UPDATED 3/24: Updated portions in italics.

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A pretty cool idea recently reported in The Wall Street Journal: “Construction info on the go — New codes on building permits provide Smartphone users with city data”. New York City’s Department of Buildings has started to bring “Quick Response,” or QR codes, similar to bar codes, on all permits for buildings undergoing any type of construction in the city. The information already is available on the city’s website but the QR codes will provide instant access to “a condense mobile version of the Buildings Department webpage, which provides permit and violation history for every building, and already received more than one million views a day.

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Blaze rips through apartments under construction

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A four-alarm blaze that drew firefighters from many neighboring towns this morning tore through a three-story apartment building that was under construction since early last year.

At least three helicopters hovered overhead this morning, capturing video of the roof fire and some reports indicated reached as far as Manhattan’s West Side Highway. St. Georges Avenue was closed for most of the day from West Hazelwood Avenue and/or West Milton Avenue to West Grand Avenue, with traffic jamming side streets during the morning rush.

This story from Patch.com quotes the fire chief as calling the building “finished” after Tuesday’s fire. Mayor Rick Proctor, who was sworn in Monday night, told MyCentralJersey.com: “I’ve got to figure it’s a total loss.”

We posted an update about the project in October and in August, when Jim Sisto, president of Fanwood-based Sisto Realty, said he expected it would be mostly done by October and completed by the new year. In recent weeks, the building took on a new look, with the dark-colored mansard-type roof. Many of the initial reports called the building a condo complex but it was actually planned as rental apartments. Of the 5o units, 37 were planned as two-bedrooms, with 13 one-bedrooms.

The 5-acre site was a wooded area for years before trees were cleared in summer 2009 to make way for construction. Plans to build there go back even farther though, when the Zoning Board rejected a 60-unit application for the site in March 2003 (.pdf). The builder appealed before 50 units were approved in 2004. The Zoning Board granted extensions each year through September 2009 as the developer awaited approvals from the state departments of environmental protection and transportation (St. Georges/Route 27 being a state highway).

For more photos or video of the blaze, keep an eye on Facebook or our Twitter updates (top of the page on the right).

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