The final frontier of New Jersey’s Gold Coast is being settled.
Bayonne, a working-class city that fronts several major waterways, has largely been overlooked by developers — until now. Several new residential projects lining the Hudson River overlooking Lower Manhattan, as well as projects on Newark Bay, are newly completed or are under construction amid efforts to transform this once largely industrial area.
The Gold Coast — the riverfront stretch of northern New Jersey that lies in sight of Manhattan — has been a magnet for recent large-scale development. But just south of Jersey City, unloved Bayonne, which has about 60,000 residents, has mostly missed the cut. A lack of transportation options that prevented its growth as a commuter city has been softened by the arrival of a light rail line in 2000. But even with the light rail, which brings commuters to the PATH trains in Jersey City, Mayor Joseph Doria said the extra 10 minutes of travel time to the PATH remains a stumbling block for city-bound commuters, despite the Bayonne Bridge’s link to Port Richmond on Staten Island.
“It is a case of people looking for a faster commute,” Doria said.
Several developments are on the horizon for the Hudson River waterfront in Bayonne, Doria said. A 400-plus acre former Army property is being developed by a partnership of Fidelco Bayonne Realty, Roseland Property Company and S/K Bayonne Associates. The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor project, located on the northwest corner of the former Military Ocean Terminal, will have about 450 units of both condo and rental apartments, along with retail space. The project is expected to get underway in three to six months.
Developer Baker Residential has completed two projects along the bay. A project called Boatworks is on the site of a factory located at 59 Boatworks Drive that manufactured various naval vessels, including the patrol torpedo, or PT, boats skippered by President John F. Kennedy during World War II. The development, which opened in 2006, includes 160 townhouses, along with a clubhouse and several pools.
Baker’s other project is the Bay Harbor Club, also completed last year. The four-story condominium project is above a parking garage located at 101-201 West 30th Street. It has 31 units.
Clark Atwood, a Baker Residential vice president, said prices in Bayonne have run from $400 to $450 a square foot for units between 1,700 to 1,900 square feet. That’s a big discount compared to prices for comparable units in Hoboken and Jersey City. In Hoboken, $750 a square foot is considered average for new construction condos, most of which are one- and two-bedroom units.
“[Boatworks] was the first of its size to come into Bayonne in 30 years,” he said. “Bayonne is starting to come into its own.”
On Bayonne’s southern border, along the Kill Van Kull channel across from Staten Island, a former Texaco plant is being refined into a mixed-use development. Kaplan Companies has recently been designated by the city to redevelop the site into 145 residential units, along with 150,000 square feet of retail space and 180,000 square feet of office space. The site lies underneath the Bayonne Bridge and offers a view of Staten Island.
In the commercial realm, the Cameron Group is in the process of developing a 360,000-square-foot mall in the city.
At the end of this year, Atwood said Baker will break ground on a new four-story, 160-unit complex with an underground parking garage, located on the northern side of Newark Bay. He expects the project to be completed within three years.
Opting for Newark Bay over the Hudson River was a question of cost and availability of land, Atwood said.
Bayonne is an older town, with a blue-collar population and a sizable stock of one- and two-family houses, so the condo boomlet will be a point of departure both architecturally and in terms of the residents developers seek. Bayonne’s demographics have long mirrored working-class, immigrant neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, minus the large apartment buildings. Life typically centers around the neighborhood church and ethnic cuisine, and children play in the streets. While the new development has altered the city, Doria noted that Bayonne is a city of families and neighborhood cohesiveness, which he says is lacking in Hoboken and Jersey City.
Hoboken and Jersey City are known for their growing populations of young professionals, though more families are buying into new construction buildings and converted brownstones. Doria, who is also a state senator for a district of downtown Jersey City, said the fast-growing part of town isn’t well linked to other areas of the city through public transportation.
Jose Cruz, a senior director at Cushman & Wakefield, said new Bayonne developments are geared to young families. He said younger families with money have been looking to Bayonne for a quicker commute than to and from other outlying suburbs, and are drawn by low crime and new construction.
The area is becoming an affordable alternative to Jersey City and Hoboken. The average sales price for a one-family home in Bayonne is $354,000, and the average price for a condo is $269,000.
Historically Bayonne has been an Italian and Irish immigrant enclave, with a smattering of historically Eastern European immigrant neighborhoods dotted around the city. Now the city’s immigrant population has been increasing and diversifying, thanks to an influx of Eastern Europeans and Egyptian Coptic Christians.
Its location on a peninsula between Upper New York Harbor, the Hudson River and Newark Bay has made Bayonne a center for the shipbuilding industry, for both the Navy and merchant lines. Its waterfront oil and chemical refineries have long been a fixture of the port, and past fires on the water have been an unwelcome source of attention. The Army has also had offices in the city.
“Bayonne is a diamond in the rough,” Atwood said.