Construction is nearly complete at The Botanic, a new 242-unit luxury apartment building in Carteret that just sold for $87.5 million. — Courtesy: Carteret/Living Residential
By Joshua Burd
Forte Real Estate Development has sold a nearly completed, 242-unit luxury apartment building in Carteret for $87.5 million, borough officials announced last week.
Now known as The Botanic, the property at 36 Washington Ave. is currently in lease-up at a site just off Roosevelt Avenue and roughly a mile east of the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s now under new ownership after Forte’s sale of the project to Living Residential, a Lakewood-based operator that owns roughly a half-dozen communities in the state.
Barry Waisbrod, an executive vice president with The Kislak Co. Inc., arranged the sale.
“The Botanic is one of our largest and most luxurious mixed-used projects in town, and we are all very happy with the final product,” Mayor Daniel J. Reiman said. “Carteret has experienced more than $2 billion in private investment during the past 20 years in addition to $250 million in public improvements. With the marina complete and the ferry project starting construction soon, Living Residential is getting in on the ground floor for what will be an exciting future of development and revitalization.”
In announcing the deal, the borough noted that The Botanic has 10,000 square feet of restaurant space, including a rooftop eatery, plus 30,000 square feet of outdoor amenity space. That includes a 15,000-square-foot rooftop terrace, multiple courtyards, gardens, fire pits, planters with river birch trees and atmospheric lighting, which prompted Living Residential CEO Gary Kassirer to change the name of the property from Washington Lofts.
Additionally, the site will benefit from its proximity to the Turnpike, Newark Liberty International Airport, Manhattan and the adjacent URSB Carteret Performing Arts & Events Center. Meantime, the borough is slated to break ground by year-end on a new ferry terminal that will capitalize on its location along the Arthur Kill.
“It’s just a beautiful town with a great, great mayor who has an unbelievable vision,” Kassirer said. “I would say he has the most amazing devotion and dedication to see that vision through. It’s something that’s very inspiring, something I want to be part of, and something that people in the state and the tristate area should take note of because Carteret is becoming the epicenter for the live, work, eat, play lifestyle with a community that is vibrant and most attractive.”
The deal follows Forte’s sale of The View at Middlesex, a new 200-unit apartment property in its home community of Middlesex Borough, to Living Residential, in a deal also brokered by Kislak’s Waisbrod. At the 1.72-acre Carteret property, the buyer noted that the value of the 10,000-square-foot retail space is around $6 million, marking an $81 million investment in the residential component at about $334,000 per unit.
“That’s an extremely attractive basis for Class A fully amenitized property in New Jersey by any metric,” Kassirer said. “From an economic perspective, it’s very attractive, and considering the future that holds for Carteret, this is exciting and something we very much look forward to being a part of.”