Page 24 - RE-NJ

22 JUNE 2025
‘THE JOURNAL’ TAKES CENTER
STAGE AT JERSEY CITY SUMMIT
It was a subtle but key detail in a
wide-ranging discussion on The
Journal, the project that will bring
more than 1,700 apartments to
Jersey City’s resurgent Journal
Square district, where Kushner will
soon deliver the first of two gleaming
64-story towers.
Michael Sommer, the firm’s chief
development
officer, said
renters had
already signed
nearly 200
leases during a
preleasing phase
that began just
a few weeks
Michael Sommer
earlier.
“The proof is really in the pudding,”
he said in mid-May, before
heaping praise on The Marketing
Directors, the project’s leasing
agent, for helping to spark the early
momentum.
It won’t be the last time Sommer is
lauding the long list of professionals,
public officials and in-house
colleagues who are involved in
bringing The Journal to fruition.
That’s understandable for a nearly
$1 billion project that has risen in
the confines of a historic urban
neighborhood, especially one that
endured years of delays before
breaking ground in 2022.
The Journal’s initial phase of 966
rentals will hit the market this
summer, Kushner executives said
May 15 during a fireside chat at The
Jersey City Summit, as anticipation
builds for a property that will have
“ultra luxury,” condo-level finishes
and seemingly unprecedented
amenities ranging from a cold plunge
to a bowling alley. It’s also setting
the stage for a ripple effect that will
only enhance the momentum around
the adjacent Journal Square PATH
station, in an area that has welcomed
thousands of new residents in recent
years amid an ongoing construction
boom.
“(It is) really
the hole in the
circle of the
doughnut,”
said Nicole
Kushner Meyer,
Kushner’s
president,
noting that the
connectivity of the PATH and the
surrounding community inspired a
concept “that envisioned life and
energy in the center of Journal
Square.”
That will take the form of a nearly
one-acre public plaza along John
F. Kennedy Boulevard, with
green space, seating areas and a
schedule of public events, allowing
the buildings to blend seamlessly
with the neighborhood and the
transit hub directly to the north.
Residents, meantime, will enjoy a
roughly 40,000-square-foot amenity
center that will also include indoor
basketball and squash courts, high-
end spa and fitness facilities, lounges
and indoor and outdoor swimming
pools, among others.
The Journal will also have a new
40,000-square-foot Target store
at the ground floor that figures
to be another destination for the
community.
“It really was the linchpin that we
think Journal Square has been
waiting for,” Sommer said during
the event at 601W Cos.’ Harborside
complex. “It is front and center in
the square, directly adjacent to the
PATH station. There certainly have
been other ambitious projects. This
one, I think, takes it to another
level.”
Gene Paolino, a partner with
Genova Burns LLC and a key land
use attorney
involved in
the project,
moderated the
fireside chat
before many
of The Jersey
City Summit’s
more than
Gene Paolino
1,200 registered
attendees. He recalled the desolate,
vacant lot that occupied the
site for years before the 2022
groundbreaking, contrasting it
with the two majestic high-rises
that seemed to go up “in the blink
of an eye” once Kushner began
construction.
Sommer and Meyer could only smile.
“It did not feel like the blink of an
eye,” Sommer quipped. “I can tell
you that for sure. In our minds, it’s
been hand-to-hand combat all along
and since day one. But we have the
right team on the job.”
That includes general contractor
AJD Construction, which Sommer
praised on multiple occasions, as
well as Kushner’s in-house capital
markets unit that helped secure
financing for the project. The firm
can now enjoy the satisfaction of the
nearly completed first tower, with
the second soon to follow, as well
as what’s still to come in Journal
Square.
Paolino, for instance, pointed to a
neighboring property that Kushner
owns at 30 Journal Square, which
it hopes to develop as a sort of
sister building or third phase of
The Journal, Sommer said. The
company is “deep into design at this
point,” he added, noting that “we’re
looking forward to bringing that
forward to the city and the (Jersey
City Redevelopment Agency) in the
near future and effectuating that
development as soon as possible.”
“I think the way that we’re looking
at designing and developing (30
Journal) right now is we want the
best complement what we have
today,” Meyer said, which is a unit
mix at The Journal of mostly studios
and one-bedrooms, with some two-
and three-bedroom floorplans.
“We’re looking at it as synergistic,”
she said. “And obviously we want
to incorporate the plazas and the
outdoor space together so that
we’re thinking about it not just as
another building on the square, but
something that is creating more of
a fabric for the way people live and
breathe within the spaces and really
creating a different offering — very
hospitality-driven.”
Courtesy: Kushner
Nicole Kushner Meyer
The fi rst of two phases at The Journal, a 1,723-unit luxury apartment project in Jersey City’s Journal Square section, is slated to hit the
market in July.