I just went from cloud 9 to absolute despair. Today will be a day of mourning for what could've helped accelerate the rejuvenation and evolution of the city.

I'll never forget you, Arc Tower.

This city with such limitless potential is always so close to becoming great. Unrealized Potential is Painful.

Does anyone know city councils role in this decision? Who tf is the landmark commission?

In my own endeavors, I'm close with several of the city council members, so I'm wondering if I might need to intervene so that the next development doesn't get shot down.

u/Kalebxtentacion? tagging you because you're knowledgeable

Could they find a different location nearby for the tower?

Do the landmark people even live in Newark?

If demand is here, it will get built. If they have to redeisgn the building, they’ll do it. So im really not concerned.

I really don’t know what’s happening, it got denied demolition but is up for the planning board on Monday so Ig we should just attend the meeting and see what’s going on. Hopefully it comes true and if it doesn’t atleast we still got halo towers

They have torn down so many historical buildings over the years and put up these ugly cookie cutters glass and steel buildings. So you lost one believe me this city has allowed more than it denied

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Landmark commission think they are doing us a favor keeping Newark in the 1800’s while everybody else is moving forward and growing! Protecting no money generating places that nobody even use anymore!

Agree. This building can be built anywhere. The building being contemplated for demolition is truly architecturally beautiful, and should be preserved and repurposed. That would be much more impressive than continuing to destroy anything historic.

Someone didn’t grease the proper hands

A building that isn't even structurally sound, what a joke

Letting this group control what gets built in this city is a beta move. Disgraceful. There's too many "historic" buildings downtown that needed to be demolished years ago.

But isn't there a parking lot this can be built on?

They are mostly from Newark and they are established philanthropists who have likely been giving back longer than you've been alive. I know Del Tufo has spent decades trying to save historic buildings.

As for this particular situation? I have no idea.

>In my own endeavors, I'm close with several of the city council members, so I'm wondering if I might need to intervene so that the next development doesn't get shot down.

Maybe you could ask them why they need government cars?

Maybe you could ask them why they continue to grant affordable housing waivers for new construction?

Maybe you could ask them why they keep giving multi decade tax abatements to out of state developers?

Unsolicited advice: If you're allowing an inanimate object that at-best would be 4 years from completion to upset you, consider your reasons for that.

Frustrating as hell

Am I looking at the wrong site? The building at the north corner of broad and central looks generic and ugly.

Edit: it seems like the building they want to preserve is the first of these three townhouses. The one in the middle is cute but it's the plain-but-not-ugly one getting the axe.

Probably ex-Newarkers jealous of the cities comeback...

They should put it on one of the lots near Penn Station...

I must be looking at the wrong building? It looks like they're tearing down a two story shop with ugly stucco walls. The only thing architecturally interesting about it is the little battlements, but even they're not that good. Not every building should stand forever.

There's an 1899 townhouse that would have to be demolished. I'm not totally clear where it can be in that group -- I assume on Broad Street.

Thank you for using the word "beta" in that fashion so we know not to take you seriously.

Seems to me like there are enough giant parking lots in this city to avoid tearing down historic buildings to put things up.

The only building on that block of broad street I'd remotely care about would be the one on the north end, which I think won't be demolished. The other one on street view that's kinda nice has the big bite on the ground floor. I'm sure the block looks shitty on street view because theyve stopped maintenance ahead of demolition, but I just don't think any are nice enough to block hundreds of homes over

Yep a two story old building that is next to a busy school and can collapse at any moment and hurt a lot of innocent kids. But let’s keep it because it’ll be impressive and bc it’s historic, easy for people to say that when they’re not the ones to do it bc no developer wants to reuse this building

Yeah an historic building that is next to a school and can fall down at any moment. I rather be happy knowing that someone is doing something to prevent kids from getting hurt

Nope. Developers DON'T NEED NEWARK. NEWARK NEEDS DEVELOPMENT.

Unless a compromise is found and the facade or part of is incorporated in the Arc, don't be surprised it it winds up in Journal Square, JC. Or worse, along JC west side on Newark bay redevelopment on rt440. A symbolic middle finger 45 stories tall towards Newark.

Goetsman (EDISON PARKFAST) owns all vacant property in Downtown. Even if the parking lots don't say "EDISON".....EDISON OWNS THEM thru other "owners"...actually part of EDISON PROPERTIES LLC or whatever holding company.

He charges robbery prices to sell his land, developers won't deal with EDISON.

Apparently they are GOOD DONORS TO EVERYONE IN CITY HALL.

City hall won't punish them on their defiant demolitions or do anything to compell EDISON to develop their properties.

That block really could have used this.

Newark shoots itself in the foot once again. Who knows what nonsense transpired behind the scenes.

The preservation committee isn't the final say. They oppose EVERYTHING proposed in the James street section of Newark. They opposed the demolition of Warren Street School. (So did I) NJIT skipped the opportunity to build a 20 story building around the old castle-like school & incorporate it. Instead,NJIT continued with its decades old tradition of bland 5-8 story wide squared "building blocks" .

Btw...Does anyone else think NJIT campus architecture is bland depressing &dystopian? Just look at the "Greek village". What a joke.

But I digress. Newark approved the development anyway despite preservation objections. Hopefully Newark planning board offers carrot stick suggestions to the developers ,incorporate the facade of the old building, or hopefully the approve it anyway. The developers did EVERYTHING right. Arc follows all Newark zoning regs. (THEYRE ASKING FOR ZERO VARIANCES)

The sad thing is that it’s true if JC had this tower proposed it would had already been approved, they build towers like these left and right.

Let’s all attend tomorrow meeting and see what happens and let’s all speak during the Public section.

The existing facade sucks. I can't imagine anyone is actually sad to see it go.

Edit: I mistakenly was looking at the building in the majority of the towers footprint. The actual building the commission wants to preserve is the first of these three townhouses. It's not actively ugly, but I don't think it's worth blocking the construction of hundreds of homes over.

Behold, a historic building. I oppose demolishing ornamented victorians or anything with cool masonry because we'll never be able to build like that again, but this is incredibly generic and quite ugly.

That does not look like in 1899 townhouse to me.

That building absolutely does not give me “hundreds of homes” vibes, and there’s a big parking lot right across the street.

It's the building in the majority of the footprint of the tower, but here is the other side. The second one looks kind of nice and I wouldn't mind if they left the front up, but it's really nothing incredible, and the first and third definitely suck. I don't know if all three townhouses are on the chopping block through.

Edit: only the first of the three townhouses will be demolished. I think it's ok looking, not actively ugly but not worth preventing hundreds of homes to preserve.

Vibes are not a good way to evaluate projects. It'll have 344 residential units with 417 beds. Hundreds of potential Newark taxpayers will be kept out to preserve three townhouses.

Both this site and the adjacent parking lot should be turned into towers, but the developers only own this site. If you demand they go elsewhere and buy land from a compant that someone else in this thread said charges way over market rate, itll just not get built.

17 years of experience living downtown within a couple of minutes’ walk from this spot would seem to be a fine way, however.

Many new buildings have gone in recently. You might think that housing supply would bring down rents, but I was recently threatened with my largest rent increase ever living in this building, and rents in the immediate area was the excuse given.

It’s also alarming how few older townhomes are left in this city.

The reason rents increase despite relatively impressive construction is that Newark isn't its own housing market. Newark and JC are building a lot, which indirectly causes gentrification (by improving public services mostly), but the NYC metro area's supply has not kept up with demand even a little.

If you don’t understand how saying “this is a historic building,” and then showing a different building that doesn’t fit the description of the one mentioned to be at issue isn’t a dishonest argument, I don’t know what to tell you.

“There is a historic building we think should be saved. — “The largest part of the footprint isn’t historic.” — “OK…?”

It's not dishonesty, it's ignorance that I corrected immediately upon finding the right information.

The reddit post is just a render of the completed project, not the article about the commission. No one mentioned the 1899 townhouse in any of the comments I responded to, so excuse me for thinking the (also old) building on the corner would be the one demolished for a tower which is on that corner.

If this were a project with significant affordable housing, I would agree that it’s important to build. I don’t believe that it is, from memory, and I’m having difficulty finding anything that says anything one way or the other right now. I’m still not sure I would agree that it’s important to build where existing buildings are, given the number of giant parking lots downtown.

I personally told you that well before you made that comment. So fair enough to owning up to a mistake, but in general, if something doesn’t make sense, it’s good to know that you have the right story.

Not even government cars, giant government, SUVs.

Agreed, I really find it weird the amount of personal investment people seem to have in this project. I’m not sure what’s driving it. I can think of lots of things that I would go to a public hearing over, and actually have, like razing historic construction to replace it with parking, but this one has me scratching my head.

Not exactly the same thing, but the exemption from rent control for new residential construction for 35 years is part of the law here.

It doesn't have any zoning variances so whatever the broad street redevelopment plan requires by default is what it would have for affordable units.

I care about housing affordability, but there are a million other good reasons to allow construction of market rate housing. The people who will live in this project will pay taxes in Newark, and probably not drive. If you don't allow construction in cities (which necessarily have lots of buildings already), people are going to live elsewhere. Opposing redevelopment of cities is supporting greenfield development in suburbs.

As for parking lots, those should be built on too, but it's harder for cities to force people to give up the land they own if they aren't willing to sell. They're currently against New Jersey law, but land value taxes (as opposed to property taxes) could penalize people for sitting on land they're not actively making money from and just waiting for the price to go up.

“The people who will live in this project will pay taxes in Newark, and probably will not drive.”

The first one is not a given, and the second one does not come even close to the historical reality. I live in a building with no parking provided. My neighbors drive, except to New York City, or take ridesharing, which is no different. I even drive now, because of the pandemic, but that wasn’t true before, and won’t be after.

The landlord will definitely pay Newark property tax.

Some of the people who live there will drive of course but it'll be a percentage. If you block this project, homes will get built in suburbs instead and nearly every adult will drive.

In the economy we have, where capital is privately owned, cities can basically only say yes or no to developments, and saying no is almost always the wrong answer.

What makes you say that the landlord will pay property tax? That has not been the case historically.

I’d be curious to know the breakdowns of who gets around how down here in these luxury buildings. Willing to bet it’s almost entirely car, with the exception of places you can get you on the PATH.

The tower is almost guaranteed to stand longer than the 30 year maximum for tax abatements. Im not familiar with how often Newark gives them out and if they're full the full term, but all developments pay tax eventually.

I personally think saying “the property owner is definitely going to pay taxes 30 years from now,” is a different statement. Also, less likely to be true, because it’s pretty likely to be sold meantime.

I don’t know that I oppose stuff like this being built at all if it’s going to have a long term abatement like that, but it certainly has a negative impact on the city to have to provide services to thousands (over the last 10 years at least) more people with no income to pay for it.

I guess there’s a good chance they would pay sales tax to somebody, but you would be surprised at the number of people that I’ve known around here who basically live their lives in New York City or Jersey City, and just live here (usually pretty temporarily). I remember one guy overheard in the barbershop saying he lived there for two years and this was the first time he was getting his haircut in Newark, because he just went back to Jersey City for everything. Had never even been far enough down Ferry Street to know what church the barber was talking about by Wilson.

You can blame Rutgers & NJIT for that. They leveled hundreds of townhomes, brownstones, replaced the Newark institution Muellers flowers & garden center with a private "park". Another "temporary" use. As I said previously, as a lifelong Newarker, "Temporary" in Newark means 20 years at least.

As a witness in the public hearings for Peskins redevelopment YEARS ago. I developed a term called "The Ghetto Lobby" (TGL).

These are SPITEFUL, RESENTFUL, COVETTING, MISERABLE leftist fools who in years past mocked everyone "dumb" enough to build in Newark.

"Who wants to build in this dump? I want to get out of Newark!" Suddenly became "They're chasing us out!!"

Peskins was originally 4 stories, but got downsized to appease the "locals" worried about "more traffic & sidewalk congestion".

They still opposed it. Local residents screaming & shouting over developer lawyers struggling to get their points across. Commie questions like "How does this benefit ME?"

They killed a WaWa for McCarter Hy. A WAWA!! It got moved next to Clara Mass Hospital ....on the BELLEVILLE SIDE of Franklyn Ave!! The Newark Side is Branch Brook Park . Newark gets $0 tax revenue & WILL LIKE IT!!

They got commie & political against Walmart in Springfield Marketplace, delaying that project over 15 years till ShopRite came to the rescue. Walmart got built in Kearny instead, across from I280 & Newark . 90% of its shoppers are Newarkers. Newark gets $0 in tax revenue & will like it!!

Newark recently denied & probably killed a proposal to save the dilapidated Riviera Hotel by converting it to market Apartments.

The city insisted on keeping it a rooming home. When developers stated the project isn't financially viable & wont be able to secure construction loans, the city said "We are not governed by economics alone, PEOPLE NEED TO LIVE THERE!"
Dismiss economic concerns? That's full bore socialism.

This developer is probably DONE with Newark. Developers talk to developers & Newark is a firewall few dare to cross.

As I understand it, that NJIT park is rather temporary. Colleges love putting up buildings; they will get to it.

I’ve got no particular love for Rutgers, or NJIT, but these buildings were all over the place, not just on the Rutgers or NJIT campuses, and they aren’t now.

There may be tax reasons for buying those vehicles overly 5k lbs. Not defending them, as I firmly believe they shouldn't have them.

>Not exactly the same thing, but the exemption from rent control for new residential construction for 35 years is part of the law here.

Right. In 2014, 2015 and 2017 I went to a bunch of city meetings with Newark tenants united and my local tenants organization to fight for protections. I was part of the group pushing (successfully) for building owners to have to refund illegally increased rents. I was a thorn in Maria Hernandez's side for quite some time. She was rubber stamping rent increases for many years, my only failure was not pushing hard enough for an ethics investigation.

But the affordable housing requirement for new construction is different, as you suggested. My gripe is when they are handed both a waiver for the affordable units % and those 20+ year abatements.

I know some younger redditors are irritated by my sometimes overly-curt responses. To be fair, I should really use more kind words when addressing them. I'm sure I just sound condescending.

I agree with what you’re saying but u only pointed failed projects while we have just the same amount of projects that did get built, like halo and 777 and more

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For clarification since there are about 50 comments on this thread....there are two "Landmark People" being talked about on the thread as though they are interchangable...they are not.

The Newark Preservation & Landmarks Committee (NPLC) is a non profit local organization made up of largely newark residents (based on the trustees and board listed on the website). It has no governmental approval powers

www.newarklandmarks.org

The LANDMARK & HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION (LHPC) is also technically a non profit also made up of volunteers largely newark residents (based on who I know of personally on the website) but has governmental powers to approve or deny applications for demolition of buildings or change of exterior of old buildings or development of new buildings in their purview (anthing at all within a historic district, whether or not it is historic in nature on its own, and then anything "registered" all over the city even it it is not in a historic district)

https://www.newarknj.gov/card/landmark-historic-preservation-commission

I know it's only 8am Tuesday 11/22 (haha!😂🤣) but did anyone attend the Monday hearing? I wanted to, but my Monday evening got unexpectedly hijacked.

I suppose one can always be nicer, and possibly have better outcomes when having an argument, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re right on the money. There’s a lot of stupid bullshit in here, and I don’t have much patience for it either.