After four years and three separate design proposals, Lang Development Group has received approval to turn the former Burger King property in downtown Newark into a large apartment complex.
City council on Monday approved Lang's plan to build two five-story apartment buildings at the 1.33-acre site, located at the corner of South Chapel Street and Delaware Avenue.
The plan calls for a total of 80 apartments split between the two buildings, as well as 3,448 square feet of commercial space on the first floor. The project meets the code requirement of 87 parking spaces, which will be located underneath the buildings and in a parking lot behind them.
A large tree on the property, believed to be at least 150 years old, will be preserved.
“This is a pivotal corner in our downtown,” said Chris Locke, senior vice president and general counsel for Lang Development.
He added that the project takes an underdeveloped parcel and increases the city's housing stock, which should reduce the spread of student rentals into residential neighborhoods.
“It adds redevelopment to an area that needs redevelopment,” Locke said.
The retail space likely will be split up into storefronts that are 1,000 or 1,200 square feet.
“We're finding that commercial tenants are looking for smaller spaces, so we're hoping to get two or three tenants in that space,” Locke said. “Also, being on South Chapel, the rental rates will be a little more reasonable than on Main Street itself.”
Traffic modeling shows that the apartments and retail space will generate less traffic — 809 fewer trips per day — than the Burger King did when it was open.
City council approved the project 6-0, with Councilman Jay Bancroft absent.
Mayor Jerry Clifton said he appreciates that the apartments have three or fewer bedrooms, as opposed to the large six-bedroom units that were common in student housing complexes a decade ago.
“If people other than students were to rent, this is one of the areas that they would want,” Clifton said.
The design approved Monday was the third iteration of Lang Development’s plan for the Burger King site, which the company acquired for $4 million in 2019. After the building was demolished the following year, Lang has used the site as a pay-to-park lot.
The initial proposal was a partnership between Lang and Aetna Hose, Hook and Ladder Company. Lang would have built Aetna a new fire station on half the property and built a seven-story, 65-unit apartment building on the other half.
When Aetna pulled out of the deal, Lang pitched a plan that replaced the fire station with a parking lot and a park, but the company never moved forward with that idea after it received a lukewarm reception from city council and members of the public, many of whom expressed concerns about the height of the building.
In December 2022, council approved new zoning regulations that capped downtown buildings at five stories, and just minutes after the vote, Lang submitted the current version of the plan.
Besides being shorter, the proposed buildings also follow the new design guidelines approved by council, most notably the inclusion of an outdoor plaza in front of the building.
“This is a better project than we had proposed,” Locke said.
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