The first of two phases at The Journal, a 1,723-unit luxury apartment project in Jersey City’s Journal Square section, is slated to hit the market in July. — Courtesy: Kushner
By Joshua Burd
It was a subtle but key detail in a wide-ranging discussion on The Journal, the project that will bring more than 1,700 apartments to Jersey City’s resurgent Journal Square district, where Kushner is less than two months from delivering the first of two gleaming 64-story towers.
Michael Sommer, the firm’s chief development officer, said renters have already signed nearly 200 leases during a preleasing phase that began just a few weeks ago.
“The proof is really in the pudding,” he said last week, before heaping praise on The Marketing Directors, the project’s leasing agent, for helping to spark the early momentum.
It won’t be the last time Sommer is lauding the long list of professionals, public officials and in-house colleagues who are involved in bringing The Journal to fruition. That’s understandable for a nearly $1 billion project that has risen in the confines of a historic urban neighborhood, especially one that endured years of delays before breaking ground in 2022.
The Journal’s initial phase of 966 rentals will hit the market this summer, Kushner executives said Thursday during a fireside chat at The Jersey City Summit, as anticipation builds for a property that will have “ultra luxury,” condo-level finishes and seemingly unprecedented amenities ranging from a cold plunge to a bowling alley. It’s also setting the stage for a ripple effect that will only enhance the momentum around the adjacent Journal Square PATH station, in an area that has welcomed thousands of new residents in recent years amid an ongoing construction boom.
“(It is) really the hole in the circle of the doughnut,” said Nicole Kushner Meyer, Kushner’s president, noting that the connectivity of the PATH and the surrounding community inspired a concept “that envisioned life and energy in the center of Journal Square.”
That will take the form of a nearly one-acre public plaza along John F. Kennedy Boulevard, with green space, seating areas and a schedule of public events, allowing the buildings to blend seamlessly with the neighborhood and the transit hub directly to the north. Residents, meantime, will enjoy a roughly 40,000-square-foot amenity center that will also include indoor basketball and squash courts, high-end spa and fitness facilities, lounges and indoor and outdoor swimming pools, among others.
The Journal will also have a new 40,000-square-foot Target store at the ground floor that figures to be another destination for the community.
“It really was the linchpin that we think Journal Square has been waiting for,” Sommer said during the event at 601W Cos.’ Harborside complex. “It is front and center in the square, directly adjacent to the PATH station. There certainly have been other ambitious projects. This one, I think, takes it to another level.”
Gene Paolino, a partner with Genova Burns LLC and a key land use attorney involved in the project, moderated the fireside chat before many of The Jersey City Summit’s more than 1,200 registered attendees. He recalled the desolate, vacant lot that occupied the site for years before the 2022 groundbreaking, contrasting it with the two majestic high-rises that seemed to go up “in the blink of an eye” once Kushner began construction.
Sommer and Meyer could only smile.
“It did not feel like the blink of an eye,” Sommer quipped. “I can tell you that for sure. In our minds, it’s been hand-to-hand combat all along and since day one. But we have the right team on the job.”
That includes general contractor AJD Construction, which Sommer praised on multiple occasions, as well as Kushner’s in-house capital markets unit that helped secure financing for the project. The firm can now enjoy the satisfaction of the nearly completed first tower, with the second soon to follow, as well as what’s still to come in Journal Square.
Paolino, for instance, pointed to a neighboring property that Kushner owns at 30 Journal Square, which it hopes to develop as a sort of sister building or third phase of The Journal, Sommer said. The company is “deep into design at this point,” he added, noting that “we’re looking forward to bringing that forward to the city and the (Jersey City Redevelopment Agency) in the near future and effectuating that development as soon as possible.”
“I think the way that we’re looking at designing and developing (30 Journal) right now is we want the best complement what we have today,” Meyer said, which is a unit mix at The Journal of mostly studios and one-bedrooms, with some two- and three-bedroom floorplans.
“We’re looking at it as synergistic,” she said. “And obviously we want to incorporate the plazas and the outdoor space together so that we’re thinking about it not just as another building on the square, but something that is creating more of a fabric for the way people live and breathe within the spaces and really creating a different offering — very hospitality-driven.”
Kushner, Fulop join to break ground on long-awaited One Journal Square project
