Eugene T. Paolino is a longtime land use and real estate attorney and senior partner in Genova Burns LLC’s Jersey City office. — Courtesy: Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ
By Joshua Burd
Gene Paolino was awe-struck, not unlike many others who visited The Journal once the two-tower, 1,723-unit residential project by Kushner had opened its doors in Jersey City, offering breathtaking views and amenities that left nothing to the imagination.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Paolino, a longtime land use attorney and senior partner with Genova Burns LLC. “I see drawings and agreements … and it’s all in the air. When you see it come to life, when you see the bricks and mortar, The Journal was far beyond the expectations.
“Seeing it on paper and seeing it for real is something else.”
It was especially meaningful for Paolino, who spent nearly 20 years working on the massive project as counsel to Kushner and to prior developers whose plans never came to fruition. That included painstaking planning tied to the sensitivity of the location — directly south of the Journal Square PATH station — and to the infamous litigation that stalled the project for another two years.
He’s also a Jersey City native, meaning he’s been personally invested in the city’s growth during a legal career that spans more than four decades. The same will be true going forward as he and his clients contend with new leadership in City Hall — with Mayor James Solomon taking the reins recently after a contentious campaign — and the specter of a $255 million budget deficit.
“I know that the council and the administration have a number of priority items,” Paolino said, including the fiscal crisis and a housing shortfall. “I am sympathetic to how they need to deal with that, and I’m hopeful that the mayor will talk to developers whom I represent and … may in fact be helpful in finding a good solution to bringing affordable housing to the city.”
Paolino, who works throughout New Jersey, has helped secure approvals and financing for some of the most notable, complex developments in and around Jersey City. Not the least of which is The Beacon, a sweeping conversion of the former Jersey City Medical Center into 1,155 luxury housing units across 11 buildings, starting around 2005. He also guided projects such as the 1.3 million-square-foot office tower at 101 Hudson St., along with the 90,000-square-foot Mac Mahon Student Center at Saint Peter’s University.
His history with 36 Journal Square Plaza, the site of what’s now The Journal, goes back to around 2007 when Harwood Properties LLC acquired the 1.5-acre site at Sip and Bergen avenues, seeking to build some 1,000 units. That gave him an early glimpse at the concerns that such a project would have to manage, such as the complexity of building above a major transit hub, especially as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey worked to recover from the Sept. 11 attacks.
“This was a particularly extraordinary location,” Paolino said, but one that required “remarkable” cooperation between the private and public sectors when it came to development.
He remained the project’s lead counsel when Kushner and KABR Group acquired the site in 2014, as he did during litigation that stalled the plan after the city denied a tax abatement for the developer in 2018. And he continued in the role as Kushner moved ahead in late 2020, following a settlement of the lawsuit, giving way to a highly anticipated groundbreaking in 2022.
Seeing The Journal reach completion was the ultimate payoff for Paolino and so many others involved with the $1 billion development. Still, the attorney said, “I never take a deep breath because before, during and after a project, something always turns up.” And he has long since turned his focus to a neighboring Kushner property at 30 Sip Ave., commonly known as the Jersey Journal building, which is slated for additional residential development.
That’s not to mention other clients’ projects in what is undoubtedly a new era for Jersey City. Solomon, the city’s new mayor, took office in January after 12 years of pro-growth policies under his predecessor, Steven Fulop. That followed a campaign in which Solomon lashed out at developers, arguing that the city’s construction boom has made housing unaffordable for longtime residents.
Paolino isn’t jumping to conclusions. He conceded there would be a “learning curve” for the new mayor and council, but said he’s been impressed by Solomon’s attention to detail and commitment to problem solving as a mayor and former councilman. That was evident during negotiations for the so-called Sixth Street Embankment, the site of an elevated former freight line downtown, where some 20 years of litigation over control of the property had stalled plans to build a massive public park with a new residential tower at the easternmost edge.
The development by Paolino’s client, the Albanese Organization, could finally move ahead after a settlement and a key decision by the federal Surface Transportation Board, a resolution that took “patience and persistence” by a host of private interests, public officials and community groups.
“There is a site plan application that’s been filed and is being reviewed,” Paolino said. “But the important thing is we reached the settlement agreement that everybody, I think, believes to be fair, and the mayor played a role there. He played a big role.”
