Newark is a big city and still has a lot of room for infill and large scale developments relative to other areas. I think there’s still room/time for Newark to absorb additional developments before “gentrification” as we know it (ie people becoming displaced on a large scale due to housing price outs) truly happens.

Could be it’s for a specific purpose or use to cater to certain types of commercial tenants, or space to offer additional amenities to attract new leases.

Not all office space is created equal either - theres decent variance between different office spaces depending on space class (A, B, etc), amenities/services offered, targeted, clientele , and of course location.

This building is also in a pretty good location for office space too: right on broad street in the heart of downtown near a subway/light rail entrance, still walkable to/from the train station, across from Military park, and plenty of services and other businesses nearby within walking distance to cater to office and employee needs.

Hanani may be under the impression it’s better to invest in adding on top of an existing asset vs buying a more vacant building.

When somebody kills a guy and is hated by both the streets and LAPD alike for it - they done goofed.

Edit: alike not equally

There used to be a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station above the South Street viaduct in the ironbound.

When PATH was studying extending the Newark-WTC line to EWR, they also looked at opening a PATH station on this site but later abandoned it due to site constraints.

I think there was a report/study put out by PATH that goes into that too. I have to imagine the county might be willing to accommodate if it’s a matter that.

The article is a bit clickbaity, but all of the proposals actually do seem relatively feasible since the right of ways still exist for the majority of the distance.

When you stop and consider that Newark, JC and Paterson are each county seats and the 3 largest cities in New Jersey, all with government and corporate offices, hospitals, universities, and attractions in each to draw travelers, I think it does make sense to connect all of them via light rail even despite the redundancy in areas because of the additional transfer/network possibilities it creates (it would provide an opportunity to transfer between the Main Line, Bergen County Line, and Pascack Valley Line as well as the Northern Branch HBLR extension before the junction station in Secaucus) - this would basically be NJ's rough equivalent to NYC's proposed Interborough Express subway line between the Bronx and Staten Island, which is good considering how much of our trains are so focused on shuttling people to and from NYC.

And given the population density of this part of the state, I think there would be the ridership to justify it, especially since some of these rights of way also go either directly through downtowns or main streets of towns like Nutley, Belleville or Maywood, as well as right by major offices and institutions like the On3 Campus (home to corporate labs and Seton Hall's Medical School), Hackensack University Medical Center, the Kearny Point office complex, Paterson Great Falls NHP, and others these projects would have a good amount of high profile destinations at various points along each line, and likely entice developers to build more higher density housing and mixed use properties near the stations.

On the bright side, if that proposed South Street PATH Station ever happens that space will be in prime position to capitalize on it.

Hope this actually gets built! Based on the renders as of right now, this building looks sharp.

Given both its current design and huge size relative to the other nearby buildings downtown between both parks, this building could be a real focal point for attention for the city and be a standout/iconic landmark - in a literal sense) for Newark (i.e. exterior shots of Newark on Devils games focus on this tower, use it in stock photos of the city.

They’re not inherently bad, but they’re definitely in need of an update and to be more plugged in with the street level of the city. Theyre still definitely built with a “fortress” like mentality in mind. Even something like what Onyx did with Gateway Center would go a long way here.

NJ transit said in the article that they balked in part due to the $100M est price tag to renovate and the fact that it would have to be done in stages over several years while they were still occupying the building. Developers may be more willing to shell out the former if they don’t have to worry about the latter.

Converting offices to housing is very expensive since the floor plans and building layouts are dramatically different, but I have to imagine it’s still cheaper and quicker to renovate an existing building near a major historic train station and a riverfront rather than raze and rebuild on the same site given potential environmental and transportation concerns/red tape.

Hell even if someone came in and basically tried to make it a “Gateway Center South” that would still be a dramatic improvement IMO.

Since NJTransit owns it outright now, I can't help but wonder if they would consider selling it to a developer with renovation/retrofitting/conversion to something else within a certain period of time as a condition of the sale?

either way, at least Gateway Center should see more foot traffic now.

The concourse should be open to the public from 6am-7pm now so you shouldn’t need to “sneak in” at this point

Potentially dumb question, but are they getting rid of the George Washington Statue at the park?

I get where you’re coming from. I’m not thrilled about it overall either, but what can you do sometimes.

That’s better than what I expected too. Think it will improve as more restaurants open up and more Seton Hall/Devils games go on over time.

Just because you post a pic of one area where it isn’t obviously happening as quickly or has shovels in the ground doesn’t mean it’s not happening in other areas or that there’s not background activity going on. There’s still major structures going up in/near downtown and Ironbound, along with smaller infill and conversion/redevelopment projects.

Newark went through a similar issue following the Great Recession of a bunch of projects getting delayed, shelved, scaled down, and cancelled outright. Developer land banking hasn’t gone away either. Meanwhile there’s still a bunch of projects getting proposed and added to the development pipeline even despite the economic ripple effects of the pandemic.

I know the caution tape is still put up on Mulberry side and the desk was still up as well from the Newark Penn side.

Not sure what to tell you as far as not feeling welcome, but if the guards aren’t stopping anyone on either side and the explicit “tenant only” signs are taken down, then it one could also consider it open again - or at least not blocked off

Not gonna get into semantics as far as interpretations of it being inviting or welcoming - I’m just sharing what I know from my prior experience in commercial property management and what happened when I brought it up with Onyx’s social media team. Idk what to tell you beyond that.

I went through it on both sides in the morning and evening without issue back on Friday as did a few others. The signs on the door were for saying that entrance was card entry only after a certain time. Not sure about the caution tape though.

I’m just speaking from my experience. Mulberry street side is open. The revolving doors still have caution tape up, but the side doors are still accessible

I don’t disagree with any of the general sentiments here, but I’ll throw in my 2 cents based on my knowledge and experience:

• Firstly, one of the biggest cited points of the renovation was to be more accessible and plugged into the street grid, so in an absolute sense of the word, Gateway is inherently less fortress-like then it was previously. Yes the additional guard presence isn’t welcoming or ideal- but that’s also not exactly unusual practice right now in a lot of commercial property management circles (speaking as someone who previously worked in onsite property management in Midtown Manhattan throughout all of 2020).

• Not that we should automatically give them the benefit of the doubt either, but to play devils advocate (pun intended) for a second: i think it’s also worth keeping in mind that that most of the restaurant spaces aren’t finished or open yet (as of right now it’s just a Jersey Mikes, A Dunkin, a Grab-N-Go cafe type place, soon to be joined by Chip City), and the gym and a couple other spaces haven’t been leased yet, and many offices are still WFH/hybrid and may not be seeing their pre-Covid occupancy levels yet. Given all that: it’s possible that management may be hesitant to commit resources keep it open later with fewer people coming through, and fewer things open, so the reduced hours could well be a temporary measure until more retail tenants open up or a way to gauge foot traffic/demand in the area before doing a full rollout.

• Sometimes things also just get miscommunicated or fall through the cracks too. I’ll give an example here:

Last week they announced its opening midweek, but when I went into Newark and got off the train on Friday they still had “tenant only” signs up on the Newark Penn side Skybridge entrance and guards were still checking badges. The guards were still under the understanding that the area was closed off to the public since the restaurants weren’t open yet - even after I showed them the Instagram post. (FWIW guards didn’t stop me when I entered the “Jewel Box” entrance across the street from the main Newark Penn street-level entrance)….So I followed up with the Junction’s Instagram account that day and asked them to clarify why guards were still checking badges.

They did reply that they had since removed the signs and badge checks later on - I didn’t see a notification of that reply at the time so I DM’ed them a photo of a “tenants only” sign I took on Friday - they confirmed that they ran my original comments up to management back on Friday and had even followed up with the guards that morning to confirm it was open (Happy to report that the signs and badge checks were gone when I came in earlier this morning- just a couple security guards standing off to the side).

My point with that above anecdote is that sometimes Hanlon’s Razor is true: don’t always attribute to malice or conspiracy when stupidity/incompetence/negligence can also explain it.

That, and also by offering measured yet actionable and constructive feedback, pointing things out to the right people’s attention, and voting with your feet/wallet as well as your voice, sometimes things can changed quicker than you might expect.

They confirmed in an Instagram comment reply it would open for up to 2 hours after events finished on game dates.

The side doors on that side are still open though IIRC. I was talking about the Newark Penn Station side. Haven’t been in since Friday so IDK.

Fresh update on this front - I commented this on their instagram post about it back on Friday and followed up w a DM yesterday, they say they escalated the comments up internally and they were assured of that at the time the signs would be taken down and guards would not check for badges. They also followed up this morning saying they checked with the guards and they confirmed that the bridge was in fact open.

Haven’t been yet to confirm myself, but it looks like they are aware of it and that action has been taken.

Its something I guess. NGL I am surprised a Petco opened there to begin with.

Looks like the street address is either 26 or 28-30 Lombardy Street based on Parcel/Tax maps. both parcels and the IDT parking garage appear to have an owner listed as "Broad Street Atlantic Associates, LLC" with a listed address of 520 Broad Street in Newark (IDT Building).

520 Broad (IDT Building) and the parking garage were both sold back in September, and the parking garage was mentioned as a "developable site" in the announcement, according to Jersey Digs.

If I had to guess, it may be some type of lot clearing/pre-work for a planned construction or to sell the site off to an interested developer.

They mentioned in comments on that Instagram post that their normal hours would be open from 6am to 7pm. But they also mentioned that they would have extended hours on Devils gamedays and stay open up later for up to two hours after events ended.