Two paved lots next to a boxing gym in Jersey City's Hamilton Park neighborhood are slated to become an eight-story apartment building.
The Jersey City Planning Board voted unanimously Sept. 29 to approve the final site plan for 33-39 Division Street, at the corner of Division and 8th streets, Jersey Digs reported. The application had been carried four times since January before it finally came up for a vote.
The applicant, 33-39 Division Street LLC, plans 115 apartments, 86 parking spaces and a 726-square-foot retail space next to World's Boxing Gym.
The building
The unit mix is 97 one-bedrooms and 18 two-bedrooms. The application didn't include any affordable units.
Second-floor apartments facing southwest toward 7th Street will have terraces, surrounded by a 1,412-square-foot green roof. The rooftop will have a 2,150-square-foot amenity space and a 2,067-square-foot green roof. All told, the two green roofs cover nearly 3,500 square feet, which is a lot of planted roof for a building this size.
The entrance to the parking garage and residential lobby will be on Division Street, and a valet service will manage parking. Plans call for 15 electric vehicle charging stations and a bike storage room for up to 58 bicycles.
Anthony Vandermark, a principal at Hoboken-based MVMK Architecture and the lead architect, told the board the facade will be white aluminum composite with terracotta-colored window liners and charcoal gray windows.
The site sits next to the New Jersey Turnpike extension. Because an existing easement abuts the lots, the project needed and has already received approval from the Turnpike Authority.
Paying for height
The extra height came at a price. To secure a density bonus, the developer agreed to pay $35,000 per additional unit, for a total of $1.68 million, toward improvements at nearby Enos Jones Park. That bonus allows 48 more apartments across three additional stories. Put another way, without the bonus, the building would top out at five stories and 67 apartments.
Thomas Leane, the applicant's attorney, told the board the proposal was the result of work with the community around the park.
Neighbors shaped several other parts of the plan, too. Vandermark said the garage entrance was moved from 8th Street to Division Street, farther from the intersection, at their request. Residents also asked for ground-floor retail instead of the amenity space first proposed, and for more parking than the 58 spaces the city's code requires.
The board approved three variances, for curb cuts, setbacks and building height. The project's planner, Samuel Bellamy, said it also needed a design waiver for building typology.
The approval came less than two weeks after sales launched at One Jones Park, a 75-unit, eight-story condominium building across the street, according to Jersey Digs. One Jones Park, at 387 8th Street, faces Enos Jones Park and was built with poured concrete and a curved glass corner. With two new eight-story buildings, this corner of Hamilton Park is filling in fast.
For neighbors, the deal means more than a new building. The park money is a direct result of the density bonus, and the changes to parking, retail and the garage entrance came from community requests during the long review.
No construction schedule was announced, and a general contractor hasn't been named.
Why it matters for Contractors
An eight-story, 115-unit building with structured parking is a solid job on a tight urban site. Expect foundations and a garage level, a mid-rise structure, an aluminum composite panel facade, two green roofs, a rooftop amenity deck, EV charging installs and the full run of MEP, elevators, fire protection and apartment finishes. Two site conditions stand out. Building next to the Turnpike extension, with an easement right at the lot line, means coordination with the Turnpike Authority and careful planning for staging and protection. And with a new condo building across the street and a neighborhood that has been closely involved, expect attention to noise, deliveries and traffic. The $1.68 million for Enos Jones Park could also mean separate park improvement work, so landscape and site contractors in Hudson County should keep an eye out for that. And the green roofs mean waterproofing, drainage and planting work that roofers and landscape crews will need to coordinate closely.