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infrastructure took about seven years, according to Bollwage.
As other development proposals foundered over the years, the city concluded that the site would work better in smaller pieces. A parking deck was built on one parcel, and
the Kellogg Building, part of Union County College, was built on another. Two smaller housing developments were built near the college.
“Breaking it up has worked better for us,” Bollwage
said. “Sal is
building the
cornerstone of the project.”
Vinty is being
financed
through a
$55 million
construction
loan from Citizens Bank and Lakeland Bank, along with an equity investment worth more than $20 million from Marble Capital LP. The financing was secured through JLL.
The five-story Vinty will have amenities that include a pool, gym, greenhouse, community kitchen and spa.
Garcia hopes to use some of these features to allow Vinty residents to connect with the wider community in Elizabeth — such as by having
the city group Groundwork, which promotes urban gardens, work in the greenhouse, or having high school culinary students use the kitchen.
“We want to create ways for residents of the Vinty to become part of the community and give back,” Garcia said. He envisions affluent residents of the Vinty getting to know community members and helping them find job opportunities. The lack of such networks, he said, “is the biggest challenge for urban areas.”
As the son of a carpenter/framer who also worked on cars, Garcia didn’t have an extensive professional network — but he grew up learning how to use tools. After graduating from high school, he worked as a landscaper, snowplow operator
and contractor and, with his father and partners, invested in two- and three-family homes. After his father died in 2008, around the time of the financial crash, Garcia moved into commercial work, building stores for Dollar General, Auto Zone and other
retailers.
Vinty is a more ambitious undertaking, which led him to team up first with Faros Properties to submit the redevelopment proposal to the city, and then with LeCesse, to work on the construction.
“I had never done anything on this scale,” Garcia said. “I had to find partners.”
LeCesse has built in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York State.
The company had been looking
to enter the New Jersey market, encouraged by redevelopment in cities like Hackensack and Newark, and believing there would be a demand
for apartments within commuting
distance of New York City.
CEO and President Sal Leccese said that when he was introduced to Garcia, he felt the Elizabeth project would be a good fit for his company.
“We prefer to build properties that are not high-rises. We like five or six stories,” Leccese said. They target middle-income residents because “it’s a wider market,” he added.
And Leccese liked Vinty’s location near the train line: “Everything we were looking at in New Jersey was somehow transit-oriented. That was one of the biggest attractions to us.”
LeCesse and MAS will share ownership of the building, which qualifies for federal tax incentives to
encourage construction in so-called Opportunity Zones, under the 2017 tax reform law.
The developers plan to build a second, mostly residential, building near the site of the first one, but the timeline hasn’t been determined yet, Garcia said.
For Garcia, one of the biggest
selling points of the Vinty is that the Elizabeth train station is on both the North Jersey Coast line, which takes travelers to the Jersey Shore, and the Northeast Corridor, running between Trenton and New York City.
“You can take the train to the city and take the train to the beach,” Garcia said. RE
100 = 21ST
Years of Experience Century Solutions
633 Division Street, Elizabeth, NJ 07201 908-272-7555 www.elberon.com
Christian Bollwage
