From left: Roseland Property's Liberty Harbor development in Jersey City and Roseland Property's RiverTrace at Port Imperial in Weehawken

The same market conditions that are pushing rents higher and vacancy rates lower for rental units throughout America are spurring multi-family construction in New Jersey. According to the Wall Street Journal, rental apartment construction is expected to more than double this year from the fewer than 1,300 apartments built in 2011. It would mark the most new units since 2007. [more]

The view from Hoboken, in Hudson County, N.J.

The rental housing market is thriving in Hudson County, N.J., the New York Times reported.

Hudson County, the Garden State’s smallest county, is the one place where builders “can still get the economics to work,” David Barry, the president of Hoboken-based Ironstate Development, told the Times. [more]

New Jersey office landlord Mack-Cali Realty, is partnering with Hoboken-based Ironstate Development to develop two luxury towers with 500 rental units on the Jersey City waterfront, the Wall Street Journal reported, in an effort to diversify it’s predominantly commercial office portfolio as the market shifts towards residential.

“What they’re doing, I think it’s very smart. At the moment, the market clearly shows more demand for residential than for office,” said Jamie LeFrak, a principal at the LeFrak Organization, a major developer in Jersey City.

The towers will span two city blocks the Journal said, currently the site of vacant parking lots. Mack-Cali is aiming to break ground on the development in the last quarter of 2012. [more]

Ironstate Development President David Barry and a rendering of the Homeport developmentThe city has sold the Staten Island development site that formerly housed a U.S. Naval Base to Ironstate Development for $11 million, the city’s Economic Development Corporation announced today.

New Jersey-based Ironstate will build a $150 million complex on the 7-acre waterfront site known as Homeport, in the Stapelton section of the borough. It will include 900 residential rental units, 30,000 square feet of retail, 600 parking spaces and a public plaza.

The city will also invest $32 million for infrastructure improvements to create a new waterfront esplanade in Homeport and Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro has set aside $1 million for improvements on the Staten Island Rail Road’s Stapleton station. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

Four-year-old conception of Harrison Urban Square by the project’s developers, Ironstate Development
The once underwhelming industrial center of Harrison, N.J. is back on track for its billion-dollar makeover, the New York Times reported.

With the slogan “Connect Here,” the city will look to draw residents to the new “Harrison
MetroCentre” by highlighting its proximity to Manhattan, Hoboken and Newark, as well as a
host of renovations and new housing projects.

This includes 275 new rental units in the Harrison Station apartment complex, developed by Ironstate Development and Pegasus Group adjacent to the 98-year-old
PATH station and within walking distance of the New York Red Bulls’ new soccer stadium. Complete with an
attended lobby, fitness center, outdoor pool, volleyball court and lounge, the building will start
leasing next month. [more]

Andre Balazs isn’t the only big-name hotelier with his eye on the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s boutique hotel project at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Wall Street Journal dropped a few more hints today as to who might soon be jockeying for the opportunity to build a 150-room hotel adjacent to Eero Saarinen’s Trans World Airlines Flight Center, among them: Donald Trump, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and pod hotel owner-operator Yotel. Comments

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Andre Balazs and the former Trans World Airlines Flight Center

Hotelier Andre Balazs is one of several developers scoping out Eero Saarinen’s vacant terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport after the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey offered up the opportunity to build a new boutique hotel there earlier this month. According to the Wall Street Journal, Balazs’ firm — as well as Hoboken W Hotel builder Ironstate Development and WQB Architecture, which was responsible for the Lambs Club building hotel conversion on West 44th Street — appeared on a list of attendees at a recent site visit. [more]

New Jersey issued less than 12,000 permits for new housing last year, a threshold not crossed since 1945, and although market analysts are skeptical that a full recovery is on the horizon, many multi-family builders are pressing on with — slightly altered — large-scale plans. Hoboken’s Ironstate Development is shifting its concentration to efficiency for its new units, though after exiting the condo construction fray three years ago, the company is waiting yet another year before dipping its feet back in. When the company does proceed with its plans for 70 new condos in Long Branch, said David Barry, Ironstate’s president, units will be priced from “something like $349,000, not $500,000, which is more in line with today’s market.” Ironstate is also revisiting plans for Port Liberté on Jersey City’s waterfront. “I don’t know if we’ll start going in ’10,” Barry said, “but we are starting to work with architects again.” Millennium Homes, which had halted construction on the remaining 41 condos in its Vizcaya development in West Orange when the market appeared to stall, reconsidered after sales on the first batch of residences were unexpectedly brisk. Construction on those 41 remaining homes is set to restart next month. [NYT]

Homeport on Staten Island’s waterfront

Ironstate Development of Hoboken plans to invest $150 million to build apartment buildings, stores and a public plaza as part of the long anticipated redevelopment of the Homeport on Staten Island’s waterfront. Ironstate, formerly known as Applied Development, is teaming up with the city of New York to make over a portion of a former Navy homeport in Stapleton on the northeastern side of Staten Island. Plans call for building two residential buildings up to six stories tall with about 800 apartments on a seven-acre site, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Rents for one-bedrooms would run between $1,200 and $1,500 while two-bedrooms would rent for $1,500 up to $2,000. The complex would include 30,000 square feet of shops and restaurants on the ground floor with wide sidewalks and a public plaza for outdoor dining. The city has committed $33 million for infrastructure improvements including road reconstruction that would improve access to the site from the Stapleton neighborhood and a new waterfront esplanade next to the apartments, which would give the public access to the waterfront. The project would generate more than 1,100 construction jobs and 150 permanent jobs including retail and building maintenance positions. Construction is expected to start in early 2011. more

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