The Metropark train station in Iselin is one of NJ Transit’s busiest, serving 1.5 million passengers annually.
I’m as guilty as anyone of overusing words like “transformative” when it comes to major redevelopment projects. But it seems in some instances like there’s no avoiding it. A case in point is a plan for Woodbridge’s Metropark train station, where surface parking lots will become a new office and ambulatory care center spanning nearly 250,000 square feet, as well as 235 luxury apartments and retail space. If you ask me, that seems transformative enough.
Our cover story this month is a deep dive on that project, which Hackensack Meridian Health unveiled in early March alongside Gov. Phil Murphy and a team that includes Russo Development, Onyx Equities and Dinallo Development. Those stakeholders note that the plan came together over the prior 18 months, yet it was the product of relationships that had formed years earlier at the upper levels of New Jersey’s real estate and health care sectors. The project also benefited from good timing, as we explain, helping to make good on years of planning by state and local officials seeking to energize the busy transit hub.
Our April issue also details several mixed-use projects that are now taking shape in cities like Paterson, Newark and Camden with the help of the state’s Hospital Partnership Subsidy Program. Spearheaded by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, the program is meant to spur new affordable and supportive housing development near health care institutions, under a framework that has paired builders with hospitals. The agency has provided nearly $15 million to date for three projects with a combined 181 apartments and on-site clinical spaces operated by partner hospitals, which will improve access to care outside the emergency room, as it fields interest from prospective applicants in other cities.
Elsewhere in this edition, we highlight the newly announced renovation plan for Morristown’s landmark Headquarters Plaza, which will energize the sprawling concourse that connects three office towers, a Hyatt Regency hotel and a host of retailers and restaurants under the roof of the 1 million-square-foot complex. The project’s design team and local officials also point to another key element of the plan: The refreshed property will engage the community in a way that it hasn’t in decades, taking cues from other redevelopment projects in the town that have created new office space for the likes of Deloitte LLP and Valley Bank, along with new public-facing spaces at street level.
You can find those stories and more in the latest issue of Real Estate NJ, as we kick off the second quarter and look ahead to the busy spring event season. Perhaps more accurately, it will be an extension of what’s already been a packed slate of conferences and networking programs through the first three months of the year. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at those events that are still to come and, as always, it’s reassuring to see the large crowds on hand, serving as a reminder of just how engaged and optimistic the industry is despite some looming questions for the market.
Until then, thanks for reading. Enjoy the issue!
Joshua Burd
Editor
josh@re-nj.com
