Tag Archives: apartments

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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St. Georges Avenue apartments update

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The snowy winter and wet spring slowed the apartment complex project going up on St. Georges Avenue by at least three months, according to Jim Sisto, president of Westfield-based Sisto Realty, along with some changes with contractors.

Sisto said the 50-unit project should be 80 percent completed by mid-October and “ready to go” by the new year. The 37 two-bedroom units will be about 1,100 square feet and the other 13 one-bedroom units about 800 square feet in the three-story structure.

It was last summer that dozens of trees were cleared on the St. Georges Avenue site to make way for the development. At that time, Sisto anticipated about a year for construction.

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Apartments, Arts District, Downtown

Park Square aiming for June occupancy

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In case you haven’t been to the Park Square Web site of late, it’s been updated to reflect a planned June 2009 occupancy. Previous timelines had pegged October 2008 and March 2009 for residential occupancy at the four-story, 159-unit rental development.

It’s been about a year since brick work was started on the Irving Street facade and construction of the Main Street side began. The photo above was taken Sunday, and you can see the streetscape work continuing up to the corner of Elizabeth Avenue. You’ll recall the first tenant was signed for the first-floor Irving Street retail space earlier this year.

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Apartments, Arts District, Downtown, Rahway, Wheatena

On tap for 2008: Park Square, Sky View

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Nothing Earth-shattering in the mayor’s State of the City address last night. The new year should bring with it the completion of Park Square and Sky View at Carriage City Plaza, which includes a Hotel Indigo. Mayor James Kennedy pledged that downtown redevelopment efforts would continue to see progress this year, despite a downturn in the national economy as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.
The largest portion of the mayor’s nine-minute remarks focused on a new billing method for sewage. He expects the city’s assessment from the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority (RVSA) to increase from $3.6 million in Fiscal Year 2007 to $6.1 million in FY 2010, or almost 70 percent in the next three years.
Speaking of the subprime mortgage mess, what effect has it had on Rahway’s plans? I happened to pose that question to City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier just last month, after reading about Asbury Park’s problems, and one Hoboken developer switching condo projects to rentals because of the housing market.
Pelissier said the city hasn’t been adversely affected by the real estate market — in terms of redevelopment — and rattled off an update on a number of projects:
* Park Square (rentals) has made plans to take out permits for the second building, which will face Main Street.
* Dornoch I (Main and Monroe streets) has taken out permits for The Savoy (36 units for purchase with 7,000 square feet of retail).
* Station Place (Five stories, with 80 units and 132 parking spaces, on Campbell Street between Elm and Cherry, for purchase) is still in the process of acquiring properties and relocating the main tenant, A&M Tool Co.
* Wheatena (Elizabeth and West Grand avenues) has requested assistance on the acquisition of properties for its 200-unit project (for purchase).
* Renaissance at Rahway, 72 units with underground parking, also requested assistance of the Redevelopment Agency to acquire the remaining three properties necessary to control the site (Triangle Inn area on Monroe Street). Five of the eight properties necessary are under contract.
* The Town Center project in the City Hall area is still being discussed, and the potential developer is negotiating with retailers as well as the property owners on the site. “As you can imagine this project is complex and will take some time to coordinate all the components of a project this size,” Pelissier said.
If a developer wanted to convert a condo project to rentals, as in some towns, the developer would have to come before the Redevelopment Agency again for approval, he said.
“Each week developers contact the mayor or myself inquiring as to the possibilities of developing in Rahway,” Pelissier said. “Also take a look around the downtown area, properties are being improved in the Arts District as well as throughout the downtown. This points out the small investor continues to believe in the future of Rahway as well as the larger developers.”
The mayor also mentioned that City Council has authorized demolition of the Hamilton Laundry site. I’ll have an update and potential timeline on that later this week.

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