NEW YORK CITY-The redevelopment of Staten Island’s North Shore cleared a major hurdle on Friday morning as Hoboken, NJ-based developer Ironstate Development closed on the sale of the Homeport site in Stapleton. The deal will pave the way for 900 units of new rental housing and 30,000 square feet of retail situated on the former US Naval Base here. Ironstate will invest $150 million into the project, while the city will chip in $33 million for road improvements, a new waterfront esplanade and upgrades to the Staten Island Railway station adjacent to the property.
Set against the backdrop of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, local officials gathered at the seven-acre site to commemorate the beginning of the transformation of the neighborhood, a largely industrial area with a re-emerging downtown along the Upper New York Bay. After the construction of the bridge in the 1960s, much of the borough's commercial development moved to the center of the Island, leaving its northern retail corridors with high vacancies. “At one time, the Stapleton and Port Richmond communities were the shopping centers of Staten Island,” said Borough President James P. Molinaro. “If you wanted to go shopping, there was no mall at the time; you went to Stapleton or Port Richmond, and we are going to bring it back, step by step. This is going to be the start of the renaissance of Stapleton, St. George and the whole North Shore.”
The project marks the largest development of market-rate rental housing on Staten Island in the last 40 years, but it did not come without complications, Molinaro said. In the early 1990s, the entire 35-acre Homeport property was retained by the city. After the base closed several years later, the borough considered redeveloping the underutilized site into a sports complex or a movie studio, but none of those plans stuck, Molinaro explained.
In April 2003, Mayor Michael Bloomberg created the Homeport Task Force, a committee of city officials, local elected representatives, the city’s Department of City Planning and the local business community, to create community visioning plan for the Stapleton waterfront. After long battle ensued over the construction of high-density multifamily housing, Ironstate entered into an agreement to acquire parcels of the site and develop the first phase of construction.
“They have the experience, the political connections and the financial connections to get it done,” Molinaro added. Phase one will take place in the first half of 2012, and the units will come onto the market in late 2013. The existing buildings on the site will be razed within the coming year.
Once complete, Ironstate Development president David Barry said Homeport would become an “integrated community” with restaurants, cafes and shops, similar to its other large-scale urban waterfront projects like Pier Village in Long Branch, NJ and Port Liberte in Jersey City. “Having worked in many municipalities in many cities, the cooperation has been unprecedented here,” Barry said, noting that while no tenants have signed on yet, the mix of retailers will be similar to its previous developments. “It’s been an incredible effort to come together in such a short period of time,” he said. “These are challenging economic times, but this is a tremendous project and we are here for the long haul.”
Rents in the building will be approximately $1400 to $1500 for one-bedroom units, and $1,800 to $2,000 for two-bedroom units. While most of the units will be market-rate, Barry said Ironstate is “pursuing a 421-A application,” but an affordable housing component hasn’t been “entirely decided.”
The project comes at a time when the borough’s population has increased significantly. According to data from the US Census Bureau, Staten Island’s population jumped by 5.6% in 2010, the highest out of any other borough within the city. And with the single-family market still in-flux, new multifamily can help meet the demand to accommodate the growing renter population. “I believe there will be a waiting list of renters ready to move in because this is prime real estate,” said City Council member Debi Rose (D-North Shore). “And who could deny that the views are just phenomenal. I know with its close proximity to buses and trains and our commercial district, this will be a wonderful addition to our North Shore waterfront.”
The project will also spur a significant amount of economic growth, with 150 permanent jobs and over 1,100 construction jobs, said New York City Economic Development Corp. president Seth W. Pinsky. “In this respect, the project meets all three of Mayor Bloomberg’s goals for economic development,” he said. “This is not the only place we are making progress here on Staten Island. We have development projects from Rossville in the south to St. George in the north, and we really have no intention of slowing down.”
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