Developer Reducing Size of New Brunswick Tower, but Adding Affordable 3-Bedroom Units

NEW BRUNSWICK – A developer seeking to build a luxury mixed-use tower in the city’s downtown area has reduced the project’s number of stories and residential units.

The building will stretch 27 stories into the New Brunswick sky, under an amendment to the redevelopment agreement between the Housing Authority and 11 Spring Street Urban Renewal LLC approved at last week’s meeting.

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Not only will the number of stories decrease from 30, but the number of units will also drop from 342 to 330.

Thomas Kelso, the attorney for 11 Spring Street Urban Renewal LLC, a subsidiary of Boraie Development, said 20% of the units will still be considered low- or moderate-income units.

However, since the developer is planning to utilize state money through the Aspire program, the amended plan calls for 12 low- and moderate-income three-bedroom units.

Kelso said the developer also weighed other factors in the decision to reduce the size of the building.

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“My client, in looking at the combination of projecting rents, projecting attached tax credit allocation and looking at the costs, which have increased for the cost of materials and so forth, they felt the most optimum amount here was 330 units at 27 stories,” Kelso said. “That was the driver of the change.”

Kelso said the revised plans had already been approved by the city’s Planning Department, but needed to be approved by the Housing Authority as part of the application for the Aspire program - a state program created as part of the Economic Recovery Act of 2020 that pays up to 60% of new construction projects using low-income housing tax credits.

The Planning Board on Oct. 2 approved the original 30-story plan that included residential units on floors 5-29, with two-story amenity spaces on the fifth and seventh floors. Also, the plans called for outdoor common terraces on floors 5-30, and some apartments with private terraces and balconies on floors 5-21.

The original plan also contained 1,718 square feet for retail space on the building's ground floor.

A rendering of the building revealed a sleek, modern structure with a façade consisting of glass and metal panels with gray metal framework. The building angles along Spring Street to create a visual break to the mass of the façade.

The parking spaces at the 1 Spring St. garage and the one that will be built into the building at 11 Spring St. will add up to 499 spaces – a number that won’t change under the revised plans.

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