By Joshua Burd
Kimmerle Group and its Kimmerle Newman Architects division have planted a new flag on New Jersey’s Gold Coast with a recently opened office in downtown Hoboken.
According to the practice, which is marking its 35th year in business, the space at 1 Newark St. will house the team previously based in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Importantly, it will serve the firm’s growing base of clients in and around Hudson County that are involved in lease transactions, building upgrades and building conversions, among other projects.
“Our work in both Hudson County, Manhattan and Brooklyn is building and it is time to reassert our already active presence in the area,” said George Kimmerle, founder and principal and of the Harding Township-based design firm.
The new Hoboken office is roughly 1,000 square feet with the option to expand to 2,500 square feet, which Kimmerle said it will consider when the office market normalizes. Six employees will occupy the space initially, while the firm expects that to grow to 12 to 15 by next spring.
Those employees will have easy access to a host of mass transit options and all that downtown Hoboken has to offer.
“Our new office for KG/KNA and KG Urban Studio, our planning and urban design offering, is located on the ground floor of the historic Hoboken Land Building and has immediate access to Newark Street, the waterfront and outdoor space, the former trolly way to the ferry docks now landscaped at the Hoboken terminal less than 50 steps away,” said Bill Kimmerle, a principal.
Patrick Luzzi, principal of KG Real Estate Services, said the team has engaged brokers with CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, Cresa and others “for almost every opportunity in the Hudson County market at this time.”
“We all know that when the rebound happens it is happening first along the Gold Coast of Hoboken and Jersey City,” Luzzi said. “Always looking forward, we want our commercial clients to know that we are here and near, coming to them to help be a part of that resurgence.”
He added that Kimmerle has launched a new initiative to engage private schools in Hudson County, seeking to build on a recent project at Villa Walsh Academy in Morristown. That work involved the replacement of the school’s on-campus library system, which is now updated with new technologies as a center for team learning and group interaction, in a major step toward modernizing and energizing the campus while replacing the library stacks and carrel desks of a bygone era.
“Located literally steps from the NJ Transit, PATH and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail tracks, we are but 10 minutes away from almost every significant holding at the waterfront,” said Paul Newman principal of KNA. “Active at 100 and 200 River Street in Hoboken right now, and with projects underway at 101 and 300 Hudson in Jersey City, our Hoboken office means we are present and available for the next wave.”
Kimmerle’s completed work since the end of the pandemic includes a 155,000-square-foot space at 11 Penn Plaza in Manhattan for the SPARC Group, health care projects for both Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck and Hackensack Meridian Health in Hoboken, according to a news release. The firm has also worked on more than a dozen tenant projects along the waterfront for The Birch Group, SJP Properties and Vision Equities, among others.
George Kimmerle, meantime, noted that the KG Urban Studio is doing “a tremendous amount of work in the area of building repositioning” projects, including office and warehouse conversions to residential, building refits and upgrades to Class A status. It’s also working on significant land development projects that reposition fallow office and industrial sites to help towns meet their state-mandated affordable housing obligations.
Kimmerle, whose main office is just outside Morristown, has another location in Stonington, Connecticut.
Kimmerle completes office, showroom renovation project for global apparel maker
Kimmerle Group, Kimmerle Newman Architects, Hoboken, 1 Newark St., KG Urban Studio, Hoboken Land Building, KG Real Estate Services
