Construction Begins at Wayne and Barrow

A long time parking lot at the corner of Wayne and Barrow Streets is now under construction.

Coffee Chain Coming to Dixon Mills

Port City Java, a smaller national coffee retailer is set to open a downtown Jersey City location as noted by QSR Magazine. The new location is set to open a franchise at 158 Wayne Street near the Dixon Mills complex.

Bits & Briefs

Jersey City Condo Conversion Project Sells Over 50 Percent of Units
The Dixon Mills conversation to condominiums has sold half of the units, or at least the sales office claims as much.

Wired to Sell
The Times looks at Liberty Harbor North and all the electronic toys.

Dixon Mills Launches Sales Website

Dixon Mills, the restored pencil factory apartment complex renovated a decade ago was sold a few months ago with the intent of selling off the units as condominium units. The day has come with the launch of an official website, which of course means Floor Plan Porn. It seems that not every unit has yet been cleared of the former renters as the available units seem to be located randomly thoughout the complex. Either way, we're intrigued by their neighborhood map, in part because of all its retro styling, but mostly because it seems to be the first "neighborhood map" offered by a development to actually place everything in the right place.

Dog Run Officially Opens, Trees Planted

Saturday brought the official opening of the Van Vorst Park Dog Run, and the hanging of a few plaques honoring the folks involved with the project. Dozens gathered in the park for the official opening, as well as participating in the annual planting.

Below, the official speech giving:



Water is once again flowing in the Van Vorst Park fountain.

Bits & Briefs

Jersey Avenue (extended version)
Tris McCall tackles the Jersey Avenue Connector issue.

The Hudson School art exhibit
Judy Marciano points us to The Hudson School of Hoboken presentation of student art.

No Flash of Badge
Hoboken Councilman Chris Campos laments that the city failed to ratify a police contract in two years.

Coming to Jersey City: '600-foot-tall piece of art'
Just in case you hadn't had enough Koolhaas, another photo of the model.

Jersey Avenue Connector Raises Ire of Local Residents

The city has proposed an extension of Jersey Avenue, connecting the street to Philip Road in Liberty State park over the Morris Canal. Currently, the street terminates at the canal near the Liberty Harbor North Development.

Proponents of the plan cite the need for better vehicle access to the downtown, while community activists refuse to allow more vehicles into their local neighborhoods. Part of the problem stems from the fact that at present, many vehicles cut through the less affluent Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood and circumvent the gentrified Van Vorst Park area.

Other suggestions for alleviating traffic congestion have included flyover ramps for Merseles Street and Center Street eliminating the traffic signal at Montgomery Street and shift more traffic down Christopher Columbus Drive. This is of course in addition to the traffic that already has been shunted onto Columbus Drive after the realignment of the Turnpike ramp two years ago.

According to the Jersey Journal, city officials will reveal plans on April 26th, at which time they ignore public input and do as they damn well please.

Condos, Retail Coming to Bates Street

Heritage Plaza, better known as the somewhat depressed Pathmark Strip mall has for many downtown residents been a line of demarcation segregating the gentrified historic neighborhoods from the rest of Jersey City. Mushroom Development seems ready to change that though with the proposed Bates Project.

This 12 story, 129 condo tower is tentatively scheduled to break ground this spring at Colden and Bates Streets, one block north of Grand Street. The building will have 8 commercial units. Bates Street, for those of you unfamiliar with the area, is one block west of Monmouth, just west of the McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and Pathmark shopping center.

Via Wired Forum

296 Grand Street Breaks Ground

296 Grand Street was approved in October. Its a fairly small project compared to Liberty Harbor North going in across the street.



According to the official website, the 4 story, 6 unit building will have roof top decks with views of the statue of liberty and lower Manhattan, at least before Liberty Harbor construction is finished. 296 Grand Street sits along Barrow between Bright and Grand, and with expected completion sometime around September of this year, you can bet those units are sold before southern most towers in Liberty Harbor even have a finalized set of blue prints.

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Dogshit Appears in Van Vorst Park

This isn't the scoopable kind either. Someone has taken to writing "Dogshit" on most of Van Vorst Park's benches. While this sort of vandalism is a rather minor indiscretion, there are definitely better avenues for civil disobedience than messing with park benches. We'll recommend anyone with knowledge of this let the authorities know. And if you're the responsible vandal, we suggest switching to a new canvas, like the Fox News advertisements plastered on the PATH. Not that we're advocating that sort of thing, but we're just saying "dogshit" has more of place there than on park benches.

Via JCList

Metropolis Towers: 3 Times The Fun?

The Metropolis Towers' complex has had some recent demolition of the low rise section connecting the two existing towers. We came across a few bits and peices about two new towers going in along Christopher Columbus Blvd. But it seems that Emporis has listed four new towers for the complex.



The first two towers are listed as Expansion Phase 1 East and Expansion Phase 1 West-- we assumed this would mean a western tower at the corner of Marin and Christopher Columbus and an eastern tower at the corner of Warren and Christopher Columbus. There would be plenty of room along Montgomery Street for the proposed phase II and III towers.

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Stairs, Landscaping for Montgomery Street Condo

The little project we've been following for a while now is progressing quickly again. The stairs have been poured and topped off, and it seems landscaping has filled in what had been the driveway. No word as to whether the basement still floodds or not, but we assume windows and doors probably have fixed this problem.






More Photos

Bits & Briefs

Renovations of the A&P are well under way, bringing this store up to par with its suburban counterparts, and easily making it the best in the downtown area.

Imagine Atrium, the bookstore set to open on Friday at 7pm, may yet be a let down. Peeking through a hole in the window covering newspaper revealed that at least the first third of the store will not, it appears, actually have books. It did appear though that most of the rear of the store was indeed lined with bookshelves.

The Van Vorst Park Dog Run was having fencing isntalled last night, meaning we assume, that the dog run itself is nearing completion.

Jersey Avenue Shopping Map

Just in time for your weekend shopping needs, we present to you the Jersey Avenue Shopping Guide. We've included the shops and restaurants between Newark Ave and Grand Street and conviently categorized them for you. And in case you missed it, check out the Grove Street Guide we put together earlier in the week.

Majestic II

Exeter Properties, the developers of The Majestic Theater Condominiums have recently received approval for a sequel project across the street. Exeter is responsible for the renovation of the historic Majestic Theater, directly across Grove Street from City Hall, and subsequent addition of a number of apartments along Montgomery Street, as seen below.



Yet, on the southeast corner of the same block will rise Majestic II, replacing a parking lot, a vacant carpet store and an old church along York Street.

Below, the southeast corner of Grove and Montgomery. In the background rises Gulls Cove I.



Looking North along Grove Street, City Hall sits in the background.



Looking East along Montgomery Street; the Majestic II will incorporate the existing Brownstones to keep the development contextual with the existing streetscape.



Finally, looking east along York Street, the southern corner of the development.



JCVibe, as usual, has excellent coverageon the building plans and site drawings.

Jersey City to Get Bookstore

Jersey City is about to get itself a bookstore. Normally the comings and goings of retail establishments are not exactly worthy of their own blog entry, but this is a bookstore after all, and when it comes down to it, we're bibliophiles through and through.

Imagine Atrium Books And Gifts is presently covered over in newspapers as they prepare to open. And, according to a sign on their front windows, the store intends to open December 8th.

Furthermore, according to a post on JCList, it seems the new bookstore is also looking for interesting folks to help run the place, and we like how the ad reads. Accordingly, applicants must "Have a demonstrated interest or background in books, particularly in any of the following areas (the more the better): fantasy, science fiction, graphic novels, imaginative fiction, science and technology, and health & wellness non-fiction." We're hoping this includes a bit of actual literary fiction too.

And, and of course, their soon to be website

Grove Street Shopping Guide

Just in time for the holidays, the first of our shopping district series is now online: Grove Street.

The map tacks south from the PATH station and includes shops and stores one block east or west of Grove.

Columbus Corner

Earlier this summer, plans for Columbus Corner, a mid sized project on Christopher Columbus drive were announced. Located just one block from the Grove Street Path entrance as well as the Grove Pointe tower still under construction, the empty lots and dilapidated buildings along Columbus Drive have been in need of an overhaul for quite a while.

JCVibe has a few pictures of what the propsal has called for. The key feature is the rahabilitation of two existing structures as well as the construction on the parking lots and vacant land along Barrow Street and Columbus Drive.

Below, the parking lot is to the left of the goldenrod brick tower that would be incorporated into the final complex.





On the corner of Barrow and Wayne Streets, the southern corner of the project is to incorporate the victorian error home within the project. The historical house though has clearly been buried beneath years of mismanaged additions.

That Montgomery Street Condo

We've been following the progress of a little Montgomery Street condo project.

The whole thing has been taking well near two years. But now the place has been bricked over after a hiatus almost as long as our own. The project seems to be headed for finished-ville with doors, steps and fresh sidewalks having been installed.



We've also taken notice to the fact that they recently resurfaced the sidewalks, and it seems they forgot to include a curb-cut. Either the little alley the contractor's construction van is parked in will be a garden, or the new owners are going to need a hummer to pull into their parking space.


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Grand Street Construction Benefits from Liberty Harbor

Some soon to be completed condos along Grand Street seem to be taking advantage of their proximity to the Liberty Harbor North Development. We've been watching as the entire Grand Street's aging housing stock is stripped away and replaced.



This is the second set of modern row houses to go up along Street. In addition, a lot bound by Grand, Barrow, and Bright has recently been excavated. We suspect we'll be seeing a good number more of these.

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Montgomery Street Condo Listed

We've been following the construction of new condos on Montgomery Street and have found the listing from Del Forno real estate. Units start at $399,000. Interestingly enough, the indoor, basement level pool we've noticed as result of last week's deluge is not mentioned.

Dog Park Plans Sketched Out, Cat Owners Expected To Demand "Cat Run" next

Dojo-Mojo has come across the sketch of the new Van Vorst Park dog run on Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop's page.

Montgomery Street Condo Update

Last week we mentioned a new building going up on Montgomery street, half a block west of City Hall. It seems the building recieved a third floor on the very day we mentioned it.



We're guessing that this is the final floor that will be added since another floor would surpass the height of neighboring apartments.

New Condos Crop Up On Montgomery Street

For months, a small lot on Montgomery Street across from the renovated Majestic Theater, now also condos, had a large sign promising condos coming soon. It seemed though that little had been going on all summer long, with the only the small structure seen below in the background:



That left us wondering just exactly was going on there. But all has been revealed in the last weeks when the remaining two thirds of the lot recieved a foundation, then a first floor, and now a second floor.



After months of hibernation, the lot now looks like it could be ready within a few months.

Another Day, Another Million Dollar Listing

We understand that most of our readers aren't looking to pluck down a million bucks for a piece of the bubble, but we're still fascinated with million dollar properties.

Van Vorst Park: $1.25 M

Hoboken: $1.1 M

Hamilton Park: $1.3 M

Million Dollar Homes

A dollar doesn't go as far as it once did. Neither does a million.

4 unit Brownstone, Van Vorst Park:$1.8M

1,700 Square Foot, Hoboken condo: $1.2 M

2 Unit, Hoboken Brownstone: $1.4M

Van Vorst Park / Grove Street Neighborhood

The Van Vorst Park Neighborhood of Jersey City is a historically preserved neighborhood adjacent to the Grove Street PATH station.

The remainder of this article has been moved to the Neighborhood Profile section of the Directory.