Harrison: Buzzing with Evolution

The July/August issue of INDUSTRY magazine features Ironstate Development and its various projects in Harrison, NJ.

Creating “modern urbanism” communities where factories and warehouses once stood is a hallmark of a development firm whose latest endeavor is attracting new life to Harrison

When completed, the seven-building mixed-use development rising adjacent to the PATH Station in Harrison will feature six buildings of 2,250 luxury residences and 80,000 square feet of retail space, and already features an Element Hotel with a retail concourse on a 27-acre site. Developed by Ironstate Development and The Pegasus Group, Harrison Station’s estimated total cost is $750 million.

Harrison, in Hudson County along the Passaic River, gained national recognition when visiting President William Howard Taft declared it a “Beehive of Industry,” a motto that stuck. Ironstate recognized the town’s assets, including a new soccer arena (home to Major League Soccer’s Red Bulls) and a vibrant multicultural community. What the town lacked was a modern, enticing residential/lifestyle component that would appeal to today’s urban tastes.

Ironstate’s ambitious development is based on the principles of New Urbanism, which combines residential units, retail, a hotel, pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares, and a progressive yet historically respectful design. The Harrison Station site had long been home to industry and warehouses. As directed by the community’s Waterfront Redevelopment Plan, the project provides a modern transit-oriented development that emphasizes environmental responsibility and community connectivity. Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners, based in Lambertville, was hired to provide the desired structural aesthetic for the residential aspects, and has completed other successful residential, commercial, mixed-use, and hotel projects, including the Bungalow Hotel and Le Club Avenue restaurant in Long Branch and 100 Marketplace in Bernards Township.

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The New York Times: Architect’s Modernist Legacy Crosses the Hudson

A view from 70 Columbus, an apartment tower in Jersey City by Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman Architects. DAMON WINTER / THE NEW YORK TIMES

Today’s issue of The New York Times features Ironstate Development Company, and their Gwathmey, Siegel, Kaufman and Associate Architects (GSKA) designed 70 Columbus project in downtown Jersey City. Also included in the article is Ironstate’s W Hotel.

JERSEY CITY — When Charles Gwathmey died in the summer of 2009, New York City lost one of its most prolific and influential architects. Adherents of the strict rationalism of Modernist design, Mr. Gwathmey and his partner, Robert Siegel, had still managed to infuse their clean lines and grand geometries with warmth and humanity in more than 400 projects spanning four decades, including the expansion of the Guggenheim Museum and a new building for the United States Mission to the United Nations.

For Mr. Siegel, it was almost as if he had lost a part of himself.

“For 42 years, we sat across the desk from each other, we sketched, we drew, we talked, we argued, we worked,” Mr. Siegel said last week inside his Battery Park City apartment. “It became difficult to pretend you’re just going to continue on as it was before.”

Anyone looking at 70 Columbus, a 50-story apartment tower that opened here in November, might think Mr. Gwathmey was still seated across from his old partner, swapping ideas for the building’s unconventional trapezoidal layouts and its 545 apartments, the cascading courtyard, its doorknobs and countertops. It is a continuation of what came before, but also a coda to the Gwathmey-Siegel legacy, one Mr. Siegel has had to maintain alone.

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URL®Staten Island housing complex to open in December

Tracey Porpora at The Staten Island Advance reports on the December opening of Ironstate Development Company‘s URL®Staten Island.

Renderings of URL, a new rental complex on Staten Island

URL®Staten Island, the 900-unit housing complex being built at the former Stapleton homeport, is expected to welcome its first residents on Dec. 1.

URL (Urban Ready Life)®Staten Island — being built by the Hoboken-N.J.-based Ironstate Development Company — is a $150 million project to construct 900 rental units in two five story buildings with 35,000 square feet of ground floor retail, 600 parking spaces and a public plaza at the former U.S. Navy homeport.

“This will be a really different type of residential living for Staten Island. I think it’s going to be a credit to the North Shore community. I think it’s taking an underutilized waterfront area and providing really meaningful public access and programming in the form of restaurateurs,” said David Barry, president of Ironstate Development Company, whose portfolio of projects includes Pier Village in Long Branch, N.J.

URL®Staten Island will be the first of several waterfront projects — including the N.Y. Wheel, Empire Outlets and Lighthouse Point in St. George — to take shape on the North Shore.

READ THE FULL STORY AT SILIVE.COM

Explore Staten Island’s Rapidly Changing North Shore

Renderings of URL, a new rental complex for young people on Staten Island

Curbed.com reports on new development on Staten Island’s North Shore. The article features Ironstate Development Company‘s URL Staten Island.

“Staten Island has a tough time being cool,” said Kamillah Hanks, founder of the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership, as she spoke to a tour group about the North Shore neighborhood of Stapleton. It’s true: New York’s forgotten borough, often seen as isolated due to its inaccessibility by bridge or Subway line from Manhattan, doesn’t have the same charm or youthful energy that is pervasive in Brooklyn and parts of Queens now. Recently, developers have been aiming to change this perception while also taking advantage of vacant spaces on the island’s North Shore, with notable—and projects including the New York Wheel, Empire Outlets, Lighthouse Point, and URL Staten Island. This past weekend, Curbed took a tour, hosted by Untapped Cities and Munro Johnson, vice president of Staten Island development projects for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, of some of the key sites and newest ventures to hit the island as businesses and residents alike descend on the area after being priced out of other boroughs and neighborhoods.

The tour began mere steps away from the Stapleton Staten Island Railway Station at URL Staten Island (short for “Urban Ready Life,” a rental community developed by Ironstate Development that is part of the larger community known as the New Stapleton Waterfront. Greg Russo from Ironstate explained that the 900-unit development, which is slated to open its first phase by the end of this year, is targeting apartment hunters in their 20s or 30s, as the island has experienced an exodus of young people in recent years. The project, which was implemented by the EDC’s Capital Program, will also foster community life with a public plaza, a cafe, and 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Outside of the buildings, the developer hopes to work with the borough to upgrade and create more streets connecting the shore area with the inner neighborhood, as the areas feel very distinct from one another at the moment.

READ FULL ARTICLE ON CURBED.COM

The NY Daily News: Staten Island wants to be the new Brooklyn

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Katherine Clarke at the NY Daily News reports on Staten Island development and  Ironstate Development Company.

An island that boomed with exiles who followed the Dodgers out of the borough is now poised for a new renaissance as investors and developers pour $1 billion into the North Shore in hopes of striking Brooklyn-style gold.

Sure, it’s long been considered the city’s least hip enclave, but these boosters believe it can finally be transformed into the borough’s answer to booming Long Island City or even Jersey City, with glassy high-rises geared toward young professionals.

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Developers are already building with an eye toward the hipster set that jump-started the gentrification of Williamsburg and Bushwick — neighborhoods that, in some ways, are more far flung for some than the island at the other end of the ferry.

Ironstate Development, the real estate giant behind a string of high-rises on the New Jersey waterfront, is set to launch 571 new luxe apartments in the Stapleton area this fall, with studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom homes starting at $1,600 a month.

The launch is just the first phase of a project, dubbed URL Staten Island, short for “Urban Ready Life,” which is ultimately slated to include 900 apartments with top-of-the-line amenities and a string of cute, boutique retail spots geared at twentysomethings.

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“Kids will no longer have to feel like they’re settling if they want to stay on Staten Island,” said David Barry of Ironstate. “They can stay where they are and still get what they want.”

It’s about time.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

18 Park Luxury Rental Building Honored By New Jersey Future With 2015 “Smart Growth” Award

18 Park in Jersey City, NJ

KRE Group and Ironstate Development’s Iconic Jersey City Project Praised as a Landmark Multi-Use Building, Anchor of Emerging Community

Development partners Kushner Real Estate Group (KRE) and Ironstate Development Company have received a 2015 “Smart Growth” award for creating an iconic, mixed-use development in an emerging neighborhood in downtown Jersey City.

New Jersey Future, a non-profit organization that promotes responsible land-use policies, named KRE/Ironstate’s 18 Park building one of the recipients of its prestigious annual award, noting that it was designed to be the “community anchor” of an 80-acre redevelopment area in Jersey City’s Liberty Harbor North neighborhood.

18 Park is a 422-unit rental building with upscale amenities and services, but it is also home to a variety of community organizations. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County occupied brand new, state-of-the-art facilities at 18 Park in 2014 after relocating from a severely outdated building nearby. The Great Futures Charter High School for Health Sciences also calls 18 Park home, as does a teen technology center that includes music recording and graphic arts equipment. The building also includes street level retail that contributes to the vibrancy and pedestrian-friendly character of the neighborhood, making it feel like a true “center” of the community.

“The broad combination of community uses, plus the retail space, the 415 apartments above the community facilities and the seven townhomes along the south side of the building all work together to generate a wide range of activity at various hours of the day and evening, giving the building the true feel of a community center,” the award announcement from NJ Future reads. “As Liberty Harbor North continues to develop, 18 Park’s role as a community center will only continue to grow.”

18 Park was designed from the beginning of the project with the goal of both resident enjoyment and community engagement in mind. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County facilities are independently accessed and include a spectacular gymnasium with a floor-to-ceiling wall as part of the club’s programmed space. Parking is concealed on the interior of the building and a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stop is right on the corner, allowing for a fully-engaged streetscape that encourages mass-transit usage and community interaction.

“We set out to create a dynamic, lifestyle-oriented property for our residents that would be not only a centerpiece of the Liberty Harbor North neighborhood, but also one of the most exciting rental offerings in all of Jersey City,” said Jonathan Kushner, President of The KRE Group. “Including usable community space for The Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County and other organizations was incredibly important to us too. The fact that we were able to accomplish both goals so seamlessly is a testament to our design team, our construction team and the Jersey City community as a whole.”

18 Park is one of seven Smart Growth Award recipients selected this year by New Jersey Future. Since 2002, the organization has honored more than 95 projects selected by an independent jury of professional developers, architects, planners and redevelopment experts.

KRE and Ironstate both have a history of successful development in Jersey City and currently have additional residential properties under construction in the city. The developers previously teamed up to develop and lease 225 Grand, just one block away from 18 Park. KRE is currently building Journal Squared, a collection of three residential towers in Jersey City’s historic Journal Square neighborhood that will ultimately comprise 1,838 rental residences and 36,000 square feet of retail space. Ironstate is constructing 70 Columbus, a 50-story tower with 543 luxury rental residences in downtown Jersey City, and URL® Harborside, a collection of three towers overlooking the Manhattan skyline that will ultimately deliver 2,358 residences to the city’s Harborside Financial Center neighborhood.

For more information on KRE, www.thekregroup.com. For more information on Ironstate, visit www.ironstate.net. For more information on New Jersey Future and the Smart Growth Awards, visit www.njfuture.org.

About Ironstate Development Company

Ironstate Development Company is one of the largest privately held real estate development companies in the Northeast. Based in Hoboken, New Jersey, Ironstate engages in the development and management of large-scale mixed-use projects and has a diverse portfolio of residential and hospitality assets. Additional information on Ironstate Development Company is available on the Company’s website at www.ironstate.net.

Ironstate Development Named Top NJ Developer

Ironstate Development Company tops The Real Deal’s list of top New Jersey developers.

BY C. J. Hughes

Hudson County, which includes urban areas like Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken, is radiating cool these days, with its hip restaurants, arts scene and proximity to New York City. That vibe, along with rents often around 50 percent of Manhattan’s and 20 percent cheaper than those in Brooklyn, is making it one of the hottest residential destinations in the tri-state area, its supporters say.

“It’s a terrific location for somebody who wants affordability,” said Jeffrey Kanne, the chief executive of National Real Estate Advisors, which has teamed with Kushner Real Estate Group to build Journal Squared,
a three-phase, 1,800-unit colossus in
Jersey City.

Using our own research and data from CoStar Group and BuzzBuzzHome,

The Real Deal ranked the top developers by number of units that hit the market in 2014 and 2015, as well as those that will come online by the end of 2017. When firms partnered on projects, TRD allocated the full number of units to each of them.

1. Ironstate Development Company

Claiming the top spot is a Hoboken-based firm with deep roots in the area, Ironstate Development Company, with 3,354 units. A huge chunk of that total is made up by URL (Urban Ready Living) Harborside, an amenity-laden rental complex in Jersey City with a total of about 2,300 units. Its first phase, which will open in mid-2016, will consist of 763 apartments in a massive 69-story tower.

Harborside, which is being developed in partnership with Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, will feature a gym and even an urban farm with beehives. Its lobby cafe, which is expected to be operated by New York chain Coffeed, will be open to the public and “become a social hub for the neighborhood,” said Michael Barry, an Ironstate executive.

The company is also the developer — with Panepinto Properties (see #10) — behind the luxury residences 50, 70 and 90 Columbus in Jersey City.

Staten Island’s Turning Point?

A view of URL Staten Island, a new residential and retail complex rising in the Stapleton neighborhood, from the Stapleton platform of the Staten Island Railway. URL overlooks Upper New York Bay. Credit Edwin J. Torres for The New York Times

C.J. Hughes at The New York Times features Ironstate Development in a report about the revitalization of Staten Island. 

A wide bay may separate Staten Island from the rest of the city. But in terms of real estate, differences between the borough and other enclaves seem to be lifting like a morning fog.

New rentals and condominiums, some with perks like a pet spa or rooftop beehives, are rewriting the island’s skyline. Big-city cool is popping up in a place not always noted for it: Small-batch espresso will soon flow at a coffee shop; a jug band played kazoos at a recently opened brewery; and stores selling brand-name skinny-leg pants are on their way. And a fresh crop of renters and buyers, unable to afford pricier precincts and unfazed by stereotypes about how the place can seem insular, bland or run-down, are setting sail for the island.

 Rising on a desolate stretch of waterfront is URL Staten Island, short for “Urban Ready Life,” a $250 million mixed-use project with about 900 rental apartments in a series of buildings resembling factories, with bands of windows and flat roofs, the better to house bee hives.

The first phase, with 571 studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, will open this fall. Interiors will feature stone counters and bamboo floors, plus stacked washers and dryers. Studios will likely start around $1,600 a month, and two-bedrooms at $2,800, said David Barry, the president of Ironstate Development, the developer.

The site will contain 35,000 square feet of retail space, more than half of which is now leased. Among the future tenants are a pizzeria, a store dedicated to specialty olive oils and Lola Star, a Coney Island clothing shop that is soon to open a branch in that other rising outpost, the Rockaways. Coffeed, a chain that brewed its first cup in Long Island City, Queens, will also be there.

National chain stores, such as those that dot Staten Island’s strip malls, are not welcome at URL. “This place has its own special character,” Mr. Barry said. “The stores should reflect that.”

URL will also have a 5,000-square-foot plot planted with vegetables that can be purchased from an on-site farm stand. Or, for a fee, residents will be able to request that its kale, spinach, rainbow chard and mizuna be prepared by a chef who will do double duty as the head farmer, said Mr. Barry, who was sifting through résumés for the post as he spoke.

READ FULL ARTICLE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES

NY1 Online: 36 Acre Waterfront Community Near Completion

NY1 VIDEO: While a lot of attention is being put on development projects in St. George including the NY Wheel and Empire Outlets, another development project just down the shoreline is getting closer to completion. The project is transforming 36 acres on the former Stapleton Homeport into a sustainable waterfront community.  It will include 900 units of housing and 35,000 square feet of retail space. NY1’s Bree Driscollsits down with Dave Barry who is the President of Ironstate Development Company.

GO TO VIDEO

Ironstate expanding its development focus to Connecticut, Staten Island

Joshua Burd at NJ BIZ reports on the expansion of Ironstate Developmentinto Staten Island and Connecticut.

After decades spent building a vast multifamily portfolio around New Jersey’s Gold Coast and then New York City, Ironstate Development is adding a new location to its list of target markets: Stamford, Connecticut.

The well-respected Hoboken-based firm is preparing to start construction on a 672-unit, mixed-use project in that city, which sits about 40 miles from Manhattan and is connected by a busy Metro-North rail station. Working in a joint venture with The Rich Co., a local developer, Ironstate said it expects to begin site work next month and deliver the first phase of 194 units by around fall 2016.

FULL ARTICLE