(Bloomberg)—Plans were unveiled Tuesday for the transformation of a Newark, New Jersey, warehouse into a mixed-use project that would include the city’s first speculative office space in at least 30 years.
Edison Properties, a Newark-based real estate developer, is making a $75 million equity investment in the 456,000-square-foot (42,400-square-meter) project, said Daniel Ivers, a company spokesman. Plans call for two stories of retail and restaurant space, and six floors of offices. The site borders Mulberry Commons park, which was announced in January and will connect Newark’s Pennsylvania Station with Prudential Center, home to the New Jersey Devils hockey team.
“The redevelopment of this building from a vacant warehouse into a cutting-edge commercial and retail destination,” including high-speed internet access, “is a testament to the progress occurring throughout downtown and beyond,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement.
Newark decayed for decades after the 1967 riots scared away developers, but is now seeing a new influx of investment, led by Prudential Financial Inc., the giant insurer that has called the city home since 1875. Recent projects include Prudential’s new office tower on Broad Street, the redevelopment of the abandoned Hahne & Co. department store into a mixed-use property including a Whole Foods supermarket, and the conversion of the old New Jersey Bell skyscraper into apartments. A spec office project -- one started without a tenant commitment -- hasn’t been built in Newark in three decades, Ivers said.
The warehouse overhaul, to be called Ironside Newark, was designed by the New York architectural firm Perkins Eastman. It’s located at the corner of McCarter Highway, also called Route 21, and Edison Place. Edison Properties is known for operating parking and storage facilities, including the Edison ParkFast lots and garages, and the Manhattan Mini Storage chain.
To contact the reporter on this story: David M. Levitt in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at [email protected] Christine Maurus
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