Vermella Broad Street at 355 Broad St. in Newark — Courtesy: Russo Development
By Joshua Burd
Vermella Broad Street has long since opened its doors — well before last week’s official ribbon cutting ceremony — with more than 200 units already rented at Russo Development’s new luxury apartment complex at the north end of downtown Newark.
Ed Russo was quick to acknowledge that, noting that he had been holding out for warmer weather, but he suggested it was all the more gratifying to unveil a property that’s “now a hundred percent complete and feeling like a community with the number of residents that we have that are already in occupancy.”
Notably, those residents hail from at least a dozen different states.
“We really tried to design this project so that it could be welcoming to a number of different demographics,” said Russo, the CEO of Russo Development. “And I think being 70 percent leased — and now we can see who’s living here and where they’re coming from — we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve been able to attract not just young people or students or empty-nesters, but a very broad and diverse group of residents, which we feel blessed to have.
“We can do the best we can, but unless people come, we can’t be successful,” he added. “So thank you to some of the residents that are here tonight, too.”
The ceremony on Thursday was the culmination of a project that was seven years in the making, Russo said, bringing life to a long-vacant site just north of Interstate 280 and NJ Transit’s Newark Broad Street station. It’s also one of the firm’s highest-profile developments to date and its first in Newark, even for a company that has built thousands of homes in New Jersey over the past decade, many of them just minutes away in neighboring municipalities.
As he thanked the firm’s partners in the project, Eli Dwek and Albert Bijou, as well as members of its in-house and professional teams, including Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners, Russo said the two-building, 296-unit property would not be possible without city officials’ cooperation over several years. Chief among them was Allison Ladd, the city’s top economic development official under Mayor Ras Baraka.
“Allison will tell you we had a good number of meetings during the approval process for this project, and we felt very blessed that the city worked with us to help us navigate through the process,” Russo said. “This is our first project in Newark, and even though we had built in a lot of the surrounding communities — like Orange, Harrison and Kearny — Newark was very much a new place for us. And without Allison Ladd’s help and her team shepherding us through the process, we wouldn’t have been able to build this beautiful community.”
Ladd, the city’s deputy mayor and director of economic and housing development, was among the Newark officials on hand for the ceremony at 355 Broad St.
“This really is a transformative, transit-oriented development,” Ladd said, citing the project’s location in a burgeoning neighborhood and the inclusion of 30 affordable housing units.
SLIDESHOW: Vermella Broad Street
“It’s just so wonderful for us to be here for something that was balanced, something that was a partnership and something that really is for our community,” she added. “Community is so much a part of what our mayor stands for — the residents that have been here, our church neighbors, those that own property around this beautiful building. It is all about community development, and just having the opportunity to now see what has been brought to life is really heartwarming.”
Vermella Broad Street is the 14th under Russo’s Vermella brand of high-end apartments, consisting of twin five-story buildings spread over three acres. The mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom rentals comes alongside 40,000 square feet of amenity spaces for residents, including a landscaped courtyard with a resort-style pool and grilling areas, a rooftop deck with panoramic views of Newark and New York City and a dog run.
Indoor spaces include a clubroom with outdoor access, a top-floor resident lounge, a fully equipped fitness center with a dedicated yoga room and co-working spaces, according to Russo Development. Renters, meantime, are less than 500 feet from commuter rail service at Broad Street Station and minutes from a host of major highways, while they have quick access to the city’s academic and cultural institutions and the popular Ironbound district.
Russo noted that Vermella Broad Street, where monthly rents start from $2,000, also includes street-level community gallery space that will regularly exhibit the works of local artists and play host to neighborhood creative events.
“Vermella is a giant step forward for our strategy of transit-oriented development around our train stations,” Baraka said in prepared remarks. “The arrival of Vermella has already begun the transformation of the Broad Street Station area into an exciting and walkable mixed-use, mixed-income residential neighborhood. We are grateful to the Russo organization for bringing their successful Vermella concept to Newark.”
