Plans for Boraie Development’s latest project in New Brunswick call for a 342-unit luxury apartment tower at 11 Spring St., where it would redevelop what is currently a parking garage within its Albany Street complex. — Rendering by MHS Archiecture/Courtesy: Boraie Development
By Joshua Burd
Boraie Development has taken a key step in its plan to build a new 342-unit luxury apartment tower in New Brunswick, in what would be the firm’s latest project in its longtime home city.
At a meeting late last month, the New Brunswick Housing Authority formally selected Boraie as the developer of a site it owns at 11 Spring St., currently the home of a parking garage within its Albany Street complex. It now plans to redevelop the property as a 30-story building with a mix of units ranging from studios to two-bedroom apartments, under a $120 million project that would bring additional housing to the heart of the downtown.
Aside from a new parking facility, the tower would also have amenities such as fitness and yoga studios, community rooms and co-working spaces. The firm, which has tapped Hoboken-based MHS Architecture for the project, also noted that 20 percent of the homes would be reserved for low- or moderate-income renters.
“It’s going to be the most prominent residential tower in the history of New Brunswick,” said Wasseem Boraie, a vice president with the firm. “And I say that with full humility because there are a lot of other great buildings in New Brunswick. We’ve done a lot of them, but I think this is going to be something really dramatic. I think the city is going to be proud of it and I think people are going to love it.”
TAPintoNewBrunswick was first to report on the project.
The tower would rise across the street from the site of what will be the Health + Life Science Exchange, a high-profile, three-phase project that will redevelop four acres directly across from the city’s train station. Construction is underway on the first phase, a 12-story building spanning 574,000 square feet with a multiuse facility known as the New Jersey Innovation HUB, the new home of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a Rutgers translational research facility, under a plan spearheaded by New Brunswick Development Corp.
Boraie said he expects the new apartment building to be “a great complement” to the project. It also follows several major projects that the firm has completed during its decades in New Brunswick, including the 238-unit tower known as The Aspire at 135 Somerset St., and others throughout the state.
Most recently, Boraie delivered a 370-unit residential tower known as ICONIQ 777, at 777 McCarter Highway in Newark, in what is the city’s largest ground-up mixed-use project in its history. It’s among several major cities that the firm has focused on in recent years, also including Atlantic City and Bayonne.
In New Brunswick, it will transform a site that the family-owned firm has held for some 40 years, helping to expand its impact on the city in which it’s headquartered.
“New Brunswick is our base, and we’re always going to keep building on our base,” Boraie said.
