Sept. 17, 2014 Edition of The Observer

Page 1

September 17, 2014 • www.theobserver.com • Vol CXXVII, No. 17

COVERING: BELLEVILLE • BLOOMFIELD

2nd hotel signals growth

• EAST NEWARK • HARRISON • KEARNY • LYNDHURST • NORTH ARLINGTON • NUTLEY

‘Sober House’ rattles residents

By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent

By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent

HARRISON – The town of Harrison, with a current population of about 14,000 but growing thanks to several new residential projects rising in its waterfront redevelopment area, now has a second hotel. It is the Element Harrison, the brand’s second hotel in New Jersey, along with the Element in Ewing Township, just outside Princeton. The 138-room facility off Frank E. Rodgers Blvd. S. is just steps away from the Harrison PATH station and across the street from the Red Bull Arena. Its construction – developed at a cost pegged at $43 million – comes a decade after the development of the 165-room Hampton Inn & Suites on the Harrison Riverwalk, close to the border of downtown Newark. Element Harrison is expected to generate an annual PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) for the town of $189,000, according to Harrison CFO Gabriela Simoes Dos Santos. From the Hampton, the town receives a $170,000-a-year PILOT fee, she said. Additionally, Simoes said, “A 3% hotel tax is remitted by the hotels directly to the state, see HOTEL page

24

KEARNY –

T

he corner house at Grand Place and Stewart Ave. doesn’t really stand out in any particular way, but it’s drawn a lot of attention from neighbors – and not in a good way. Many packed the assembly chambers at last Tuesday night’s Town Council meeting to demand that the town take action to kick out its new occupants, clients of a “recovery house.” And the town is taking steps to do just that if the building’s owner and tenant fail to comply with various building code and zoning-related violation notices. But the new tenant insists that when the dust clears, folks will see there’ll be nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, what irks neighbors like Joanne O’Malley, who teaches a half-block away at Roosevelt Elementary School, is that the building – vacant for most of the summer

Photos by Ron Leir

Angry neighbors of ‘recovery house’ (inset photo) on Grand Place packed Town Hall last week.

see SOBER page

10

A harvest of plenty in special garden By Karen Zautyk Observer Correspondent HARRISON– Somewhere in Harrison, there is a magical place. If we were telling this story as a fairy tale, it would begin: Once upon a time, there was

a small plot of land on which a happy home had stood. But one day, the king’s men came and tore the house down, leaving the land lonely and forsaken. Soon, bad people found the place and used it as a trash heap, and it got uglier and lonelier, because the

king’s men didn’t do anything about cleaning it up. Good people who lived nearby would try to remove the litter, but the bad people always came back and dumped some more. Then, an angel appeared. We will call her a Gardening

201-460-8000 LYNDHURST OFFICE 761 Ridge Road, Lyndhurst, New Jersey C21Semiao@Century21.com

SCAN HERE!

CENTURY 21 Semiao and Associates - Hudson Count...

http://www.century21semiao.com

Semiao & Associates www.Century21Semiao.com

CENTURY HAS GONE GONE MOBILE! CENTURY 2121HAS MOBILE!

23

http://kaywa.me/aBR3I

Download the Kaywa QR Code Reader (App Store &Android Market) and scan your code!

Angel. And she planted lots of wonderful things, which grew to giant size and which she shared with her neighbors. Soon, the land was beautiful and bountiful, because the angel watched over it in every see GARDEN page

12

201-991-1300 KEARNY OFFICE

213 Kearny Ave, Kearny, New Jersey

C21Semiaokearny@Century21.com Get CENTURY 21 Real Estate Mobile App. Visit http://87778.mobi/c21


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.