Is Plainfield's North Avenue Historic District mixed-use redevelopment project about to fail?
While the Planning Board is preparing to finalize the expansion of the North Avenue redevelopment plan to include the former United National Bank property (now PNC) at 2nd and Park, as well as city and private property on 2nd Street between Park and Watchung Avenues for a huge parking deck, word comes that the City of Orange has yanked Landmark Developers' designation for a similarly sized project there.
Thursday's Ledger reported that developer Frank Cresetella said in a letter to the city that the project "is not financially viable".
Besides acknowledging that he has not been able to attract investors in the current climate, Cresetella said that even reducing the 7-story high rise to a 5-story and reducing the square footage of the units by nearly 20% still did not make it financially viable.
Given that the market conditions for Plainfield can hardly be any rosier than for Orange, the administration of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, the City Council and the Planning Board may well want to ponder how solid Landmark Developers really is as a developer.
Reality is not being particularly kind to Assemblyman Green's grand dreams. With the Capodaglis having vanished into the woodwork, no supermarket in sight for West Front Street, and the potential for Cresetella not to be able to pull off his deal, that would leave the Assemblyman with only the Senior Center and condos on East Front Street actually being built -- and that project is NOT REDEVELOPMENT, but plain old development.
We certainly are living in interesting times.
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