TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The lights are on in the Riviera Divine Hotel but, since May 1, nobody’s home.
The Riviera’s new ownership coalition, led by Newark’s GK Group has had industrial-strength anti break-in panels installed on ‘s doors and most storefront windows of 165-169 Clinton Ave. Any occupants – clients or temporary shelter residents – have been moved out of what was in 1922 “Newark’s Million Dollar Hotel.”
Logistics Real Estate Sales, of New York City, announced on April 4 that it had negotiated the sale of the 101-year-old eight-story hotel from the Riviera Hotel Corp. to a consortium including KS Group, Giga Holdings and Jersey City’s Pride Investment Group for $8.5 million. The Riviera Hotel Corp., of 45 Academy St. here, had bought the building from the Peace Mission (founded by “Father Divine,”) Dec. 15, 2006 for $800,000.
The KS Group, headed by co-CEOs Daniel Spiegel and Yeuda Kotkes, may be best known for having a 15-story, 360-unit apartment building going up in University Heights. 50-54 Sussex Ave., replacing a former auto body shop, is to open in mid-2024.
“I’m thrilled to share that we’ve acquired the 220-room Historic Riviera Hotel in Newark!” said Giga founder Jeff Blau on his LinkedIn page April 5. “This is an exciting milestone for our company and we’re honored to be part of this transaction.”
None of the transaction’s parties, however, have said what the new owners have in mind for the 1922-built hotel. The Central Newark Planning Board, citing density concerns, denied Riviera Corp.’s plan to convert the eight-story building into 99 residential units plus ground floor retail space on Sept. 29.
The Riviera hotel had opened in 1922 with a dining room and a storefront drug store-soda fountain after being built for what would be $18.057 million in today’s dollars. Father Divine and his Peace Mission bought the hotel in 1949 for $550,000 (now $7 million) in cash and promptly enacted a racial desegregation policy for guests.
IRVINGTON – 722 Chancellor Ave., with the cutting of a ribbon and the approval of lease applications here May 12, has entered a new historical era.
A group of investors and civic officials, headed by Irvington Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss and entrepreneur Adenah Bayorh, snipped the red ribbon in front of what is now a five-story, 56-unit apartment building that Friday.
722 Chancellor Apartments, after 23 months’ construction, is a blend of one- to three-bedroom apartments available to residents at or below 60 percent of the area’s annual median income. Five of the units, reserved for residents with special needs, come with services provided by the YMCA of Greater Newark.
The building – constructed in Irvington’s Redevelopment Area, Urban Enterprise Zone and Smart Growth Area – was pioneered by The NRP Group and Adenah Bayoh & Associates.
“Growing up in affordable housing in this community myself,” said Bayoh, who started off owning and operating the 1212 Springfield IHOP where the Kless Diner was, “I was able to identify the specific needs of residents that would require from an apartment house like this.”
The Sandra Jones Community Center named after the late councilwoman, among the range of 722 Chancellor’s amenities. It will include a fitness room, a computer room, a children’s playroom, a laundry room, a leasing/management office and “an Irvington-themed mural to capture the spirit of the city.”
It is not known whether that mural will include 722 Chancellor Ave.’s previous structure which held the Chancellor Theatre, Roxy Drug Store and Falcone’s Pizzeria. The 1,250-seat 1920s-80s Chancellor was known to hire and feature Jerome Laevitch – the future comedian Jerry Lewis – and to close in the summer for a lack of air conditioning. All of 722 Chancellor’s 56 units have central A/C.
EAST ORANGE – It appears that the fate of the Brick Church’s namesake sanctuary building here at 552 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd./7 Prospect St., lies in the hands of a Brooklyn developer.
David Scharf, of the Scharf Group is talking with preservationists and concerned citizens of East Orange about what sort of future the Second Presbyterian Church/Temple of United Christians Brick Church at MKL and Prospect’s northwest corner will have.
The Scharf Group has the same address as New Brick Church, LLC – an entity that had first proposed renovating the 1858 church and adding an extension for residential purposes in 2021.
The Temple of United Christians, after a decade of problems maintaining the 165-year-old edifice, sold the property in 2020 to NBC LLC for $420,000. NBC then presented an application to the East Orange Planning Board to build a seven-story apartment building north of the house of worship. The planning board denied the application for the lack of adequate parking and the Brick Church Redevelopment Zone Plan requirement to have first floor commercial/retail space.
All was quiet at 552 MLK/7 Prospect until Zuccaro, of Garfield, installed a perimeter fence around the .3165 acre lot and began demolishing the church’s north side on April 17. Concerned citizens prompted the city to issue a stop work order on its own demolition permit, leading to an April 24 State Superior Court-Newark hearing.
Superior Court Judge Lisa Adubato, that Monday, has listened to TUC attorney Calvin Souder’s call for a formal stop work injunction until the congregation can buy back the building. TUC and New Brick Church had a partnership during the 2020-21 application before the planning board.
Adubato did not issue an injunction but instead told NBC/Scharf to negotiate with TUC and concerned citizens. There is otherwise little standing in the way of Scharf finishing the demolition since East Orange is one of the few New Jersey municipalities that does not have an historical preservation committee or board.
ORANGE – The revamping of Orange Commons Military Park here in the East Ward is happening in full view through a chain link fence this summer.
“Local Talk” and others have seen city workers and/or contractors uproot 17 trees and all shrubbery on the two block island that separates Main Street from South Main Street. The park’s east end, anchored by the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument, has been extended by some 20 feet.
City Business Administrator Chris Hartwyk and UEZ Coordinator Chris Mobley told “Local Talk” May 23 that the uprooting and extension are part of an overall $1.5 million renovation project going on through August.
The project, when complete, will feature a contemplative walkway, lighting and strategically placed flagpoles. The felled trees and shrubbery will be replaced with new trees and vegetation.
Contractor S. Batata Construction, of Parlin, has pledged to keep or carefully move monuments on the grounds. “Local Talk” had noticed that the World War Two/Korea/Vietnam memorial that was originally in front of the Orange Public Schools Colgate building (Where the Rosa Parks Community School is now) had been moved a couple of feet for clearance.
Hartwyk and Mobley said that the revamped park can be used for contemplation or for events like farmers markets. The project is being paid through a $1.2 million New Jersey Green Acres grant; Orange’s 25-percent matching funds are to be drawn from a state Urban Enterprise Zone grant. Batata was awarded the $1,004,944 lowest responsible bid; a design engineer was also hired.
The Orange Commons Military Park, once used as an army drill grounds, goes back to the Colonial era – predating the city’s 1806 incorporation.
WEST ORANGE – Engineers and architects hired by the Daughters of Israel may have gone back to the drawing board in the wake of the West Orange Zoning Board of Adjustment’s May 11 denial of their nursing home’s expansion plan.
The DOI expansion plan, after 11 public hearing sessions over nine months, came down to a “No” vote that Thursday night. The final site plan proposal had failed to get at least four of the seven board members’ votes to pass.
DOI at 1155 Pleasant Valley Way since 1962, sought to build 163 housing units within a three-to-five story 122,560 square foot building on its 18-acre property. While the five story part would face Pleasant Valley Way, the three-story part along Parsons and Skyline drives would be partially set into the hillside.
DOI architect KDA, of Cherry Hill, had projected the building’s construction being done in three phases over 10 years. The extension, once built out, would include 24 assisted living and assisted mental living units, a formal dining room, a library/reading room, a pool and a theater.
The daughters and architect were asking for three D variances, including raising the residential zone’s maximum height from 2.5 stories to six; and 11 C variance, including the doubling of loading docks to four.
DOI and its experts said that the expansion would turn the entity into a “continuum care community.” Critics, including neighbors and Our Green West Orange, called the application’s traffic plan “flawed,” that the proposal is based on an “outmoded model” and that the nursing home has been nonconforming to the township’s master plan for decades.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Although the South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education eventually approved all personnel that Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ronald Taylor had recommended early May 12, three administrators’ renewals were given extra scrutiny over the 5.5-hoor session.
A majority of the school board members first spun off the proposed reappointments of Columbia High School Principal Frank Sanchez, Curriculum and Instruction Assistant Superintendent Ann Bodnar and Language Arts Supervisor Jane Bean-Folkes from their consent agenda early in their meeting.
The board, led by President Kaitlin Wittleder, then called for an executive session to discuss the three administrators’ fates. They returned two hours later to find a capacity SOMSD Administration Building committee room audience. Another 600 people were said to be watching on YouTube and Webex.
The in-person speakers, at two minutes each for three hours, spoke their peace on Sanchez, Bodnar and Bean-Folkes. Current and past Maplewood mayors Dean Dafis and Frank McGehee were among those adults and students who wanted to keep Sanchez. Several had both home- and professionally- made “Keep Sanchez at All Costs” signs.
Bean-Folkes’ reappointment was initially denied, 5-4. Then Board Member Johanna Wright, of South Orange, said she was confused over which individual measure was being voted on and wanted to change her vote. Wittleder said that the board will get back to Bean-Folkes after voting on Sanchez and Bodnar.
Sanchez and Bodner were reappointed. Bean-Folkes, on the recast, was retained 5-4.
BLOOMFIELD – Patrons, visitors and staff of the Bloomfield Public Library’s older building have had to walk and work around construction zones lately.
What is best known as the BPL Children’s Library here at 90 Broad St., has been closed since May 20. The May 23 and 24 Storytimes, as a result, has since been held under the library courtyard’s tent.
It is the start of an at least $1 million renovation project that will last through the summer. The million has been included in the township’s Calendar Year 2022 municipal budget with the balance drawn from various grants.
Acting Township Administrator Anthony DeZenzo said, on April 12, that the project is to bring the 1927 building up to safety codes and improve its accessibility and function.
The work became necessary when the state labor departments Public Employees’ Occupational Safety and Health office issued the library an Order to Comply. The PEOSH reported several age-related problems while stressing that the employees and public, then as now, were not endangered.
The 1927 building became the Children’s Library when the main building opened in 1967. The older structure has also included a ground floor theater and, on the third floor, the Historical Society of Bloomfield Museum.
Construction updates are to be posted on the BPL and Bloomfield Township websites.
MONTCLAIR – The Montclair Public Schools’ $138,858,260 2023-24 budget, which it had passed on the 11th hour May 15, has become a bitter pill for most members of the township community to swallow.
The MPS Board of Education, after eight months of preliminary hearings and a seven-hour executive and public meeting that Monday night, passed the budget after approving $5,449,593 worth of budget cuts. Those cuts include the laying off of 34 certified teachers and paraprofessionals and the nonrenewal of contracts of another 39 paraprofessionals plus $635,500 in central office salaries and benefits.
What all but two MBOE members approved included the cuts of 22 teachers and the abolishing of another nine teaching positions through attrition among MHS, the Glen and Rand middle schools and the Hillside and Nishuane elementary schools. Board member Eric Scherzer abstained from voting; Kathryn Willis-Demming was absent.
Some board members said that the cuts were based on the schools’ number of students and staff. They and MPS administrators had factored in the loss of 611 districtwide students 2019-22. They had to approve a budget that night or their budget plan would go before the Essex County Superintendent of Schools and ultimately the N.J. Department of Education – the latter considering Montclair’s budget “$20 million above adequacy.”
“They don’t care about the magnet system, courtesy busing, the medical system (or) anything beyond adequacy and what the state mandates,” said board member Brian Fleischer who added that not approving the budget would press “a nuclear button that would put kids and staff in the blast radius.”
Some of the 100 people in the Montclair High School George Inness Annex – including students, parents and Montclair Education Association – asked why the cuts were being made in Montclair’s South End, which had been historically underfunded. They had asked the school board and, on May 18, the Township Council, about diverting some of the redevelopment Payments in Lieu of Taxes to fund part of the district as is done at Cedar Grove and Princeton.
About 400 MHS students, on May 18, walked out of class and a mile south to the MPS Administration Building. They presented three demands: retain the 73 teachers and paraprofessionals, keep the current MHS schedule and Schools Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Ponds’ resignation.
BELLEVILLE – Property tax and water bill payers will learn of the township’s next step towards a cashless government on Aug. 1.
The township, in a May 6 website and Facebook posting, will no longer have its tax and water departments accept cash payments. Both departments will take payments by check, money order and/or online.
By online, Belleville tax and water customers can use their credit or debit cards to pay their bills on the municipal website, courtesy of a third party entity called Nexbillpay.com, of Birmingham, Ala. NPB, according to its website, normally caters to rural utility companies.
The Belleville Water Department also has customers creating accounts or have detailed questions answered by calling (479) 493-2328. (479) is the area code for Bentonville and Northwestern Arkansas.
The township, earlier this year, had new curbside parking meters along Washington Avenue. Those meters can read credit and debit cards and electronic parking apps – but no cash.
Belleville’s water and tax departments, on Aug. 1, 2022, stopped accepting payments for both bills on the same check or money order. Separate tax and water checks have since been accepted. There is still a physical payment drop box between Town Hall and the Public Safety Building.
NUTLEY / CLIFTON – Construction of a hotel and a medical office building, barring an appeal by Nutley to a higher court, may well go up on Clifton’s side of the ON3/ex-Roche Pharmaceutical property.
A State Superior Court-Paterson judge ruled in favor of Clifton and ON3 developer Prism Capital Partners, and against Nutley, on May 10.
Clifton’s Planning Board in separate 2020 and 2021 public hearings, had approved Prism’s site plan applications for the Marriott AC/Element Hotel and a pre-leased Hackensack University Meridian Hospital medical office building and ambulatory care center.
The Township of Nutley then took Prism and the Clifton Planning Board to court later in 2021. Nutley’s in-house and hired lawyers said that both proposals needed the township’s input – especially when it comes to a traffic plan.
The case is symptomatic of Nutley’s deteriorating relationship with Prism and Clifton over the 116-acre ON3 tract’s development. Nutley claims that Clifton is using the Payment in Lieu of Taxes both municipalities had approved to stimulate repurposing of the Roche site to benefit the city at Nutley’s infrastructural expense.
Nutley, in 2021, had considered breaking away from the ON3 project by seizing the township’s part of the land through eminent domain.
The Superior Court-Paterson judge, on May 10, had ruled that the hotel is being built within the City of Clifton and therefore need no consent from Nutley. This ruling was similarly extended to the Hackensack Meridian office building.
