The MEPT Journal Square group is a partnership between Multi-Employer Property Trust, an equity fund based in Bethesda, MD; Harwood Properties of Jersey City, the company originally named as redeveloper six years ago; and Becker + Becker, a design and development firm based in Fairfield, CT.

Antonicello says he expects to advise board members against accepting MEPT’s request for an extension after it defaults on the April 1 deadline, which has already been extended twice since last August. Once MEPT defaults, JCRA is legally entitled to consider new development partners.

“Our issues are significant,” Antonicello says. “The city and the Redevelopment Agency have done everything they can to create as much value at the Journal Square transit hub as possible. This project should have moved forward.”
He says one major issue is that the opportunity to finance the project through the state’s pioneering Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program has “come and gone,” since the state recently suspended funding for residential projects.

The developers, who did not respond to a request for comment made yesterday, have said in past years that the collapse of the real estate and financial markets thwarted start-up of work at Journal Square.

“We understand how difficult and complicated this project is, and we understand that markets correct,” says the JRCA director. “But programs like the Transit Hub Credit come around like Halley’s Comet, once in a very long while. We should have been ready to capture a significant grant, and it did not happen.”