Amid the Jersey City boom, development site sells for $48M

A mixed-use development site in Jersey City just traded for $48 million.

The site — the Avenir, located at 1072 and 1075 West Side Avenue — spans 3.35 aces and has 659,000 buildable square feet, according to Meridian Investment Sales. Lantree Developments bought the site from Amerestate Holdings.

David Schechtman

Meridian’s David Schechtman, Lipa Lieberman, Abie Kassin and Paul Patafio represented the seller and brought the buyer. Meridian’s Morris Betesh and David Hayum also arranged a $26 million balance sheet loan for the deal.

“We went out to the world and got more responses than we ever thought,” Schechtman said. “Jersey City, in every way, is much easier to develop in than in the five boroughs of New York City.”

The site hit the market last April for $50 million — and it was slated for an eight-story building with 486 apartments and 25,000 square feet of commercial space. It was approved by the Jersey City Planning Board and is eligible for a 20-year tax abatement under the state’s PILOT program. Schechtman said the developer has already been in conversation with the city and development plans haven’t been finalized.

The deal adds to the flood of development Jersey City has seen in the past few years. Between 2015 and 2017, more than 7,000 residential units have been completed in the neighborhood, according to Meridian. The area has attracted major developers, including Murray Kushner’s KRE Group. This month, the firm snagged a $258 million loan to construct phase two of its Journal Squared rental project.

Lantree is the U.S. extension of Toronto-based Lanterra Developments. The firm has worked on six other projects in New Jersey and New York. Its other New Jersey project, The Lofts at 222, is a 70-unit rental building in Bayonne.