Richardson Lofts Update

I mentioned here August 12th that the Richardson Lofts project near PruCenter looks abandoned. Here's a foto of it in its augmented form, with two stories added, as of October of last year. (Note the two areas of black, wrought-iron-enclosed balconies on the Green Street (near) side. I don't know if there are balconies on the far side, because I didn't notice these when I was near, but only in reviewing my fotos today!)

On the 16th, I received this informative email:

... I was one of the investors in the Richardson Building in Newark. The project was run by NewWork and ran over budget. The project was sold to RPM Development out of Monclair NJ. They will finish the project in the next twelve months.

I replied:

Thanks for the info. I'll mention it. I hope you came out of the deal alrite.

To which he replied:

I'm still standing. It was a nightmare. Glad it's behind me. Thanks

Am I the only one to think the contrasting look of the added two stories/storeys is odd? (Story/storey is one of 826 English words with two or more spellings I have to date compiled. Again, see why I'm a spelling reformer?) These added floors look unfinished to me, as tho the bricklayers have still to come to work and make the top two floors look like the original six. But it's more than just the color and materials of the upper stories that differs. The window layout is entirely different. Why? I know that architects, being 'creative' people, tend to see things differently from us ordinary folk, so they might have thought that a more dynamic or energetic design. My best friend for several years in Manhattan was an architect from Bernardsville (New Providence?), so I saw thru him something of how differently architects can see things. (He was the only person I have encountered in my entire life who was plainly my intellectual superior in just about everything. But he was severely troubled, worked his way away from his friends, gave away his cats, then committed suicide without confiding in his friends or asking for help, so maybe he wasn't so smart after all.)

Newark-boosters have to hope that investors active in developing housing here don't lose their shirt, but do well, so others will bring in money from outside (like those billions and billions that NYC has attracted from all over the world) and do great things for this great city. In any case, let's hope everything works out great for everyone involved in the Richardson Lofts project, which is in a great location, only 2½ blocks from the Prudential Center and 6½ blocks (less than a 10-minute walk) from Newark Penn Station. I imagine the apartments on upper floors (even perhaps from the 3d or 4th floor, if not even the 2d, there being nothing very tall around that building) have wonderful views of Downtown Newark and both Downtown and Midtown Manhattan. And how do you beat the location, esp. if you're a sports and big-name-concert fan?

In August 2009, this is what the Richardson Lofts project looked like. There is a banner, most of it blown up from the façade onto the roof, that indicates that at that point people could have inquired into rentals that were supposed to start in spring 2010. (The website for that original project is still online, giving comparable rents for Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. I imagine, but do not know, that Hoboken would be a little more expensive than J.C.) There were even "affordable" housing units set aside.
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Then somebody decided to add two floors, and the whole project got pushed back. Perhaps they'd have done better to stick with the original six floors, and after their success with the Richardson Building, turned to other projects in the same great area, such as transforming the enormous Central Graphic Arts Building into apartments — that is, if the Newark Museum didn't decide to remove from Washington Street to the Central Graphic Arts Building, which is vastly larger, as well as a unified architectural entity of distinction. That would make enormous sense, in giving the Museum room to show much, if not even the bulk of its permanent collection in a single structure, whose renovation and repurposing would have to cost much less than the $200 million that NuMu is thinking of spending to stitch together its current ragtag collection of minor buildings. CGAB is, in any case, only one block from PruCenter and 2½ to 3 blocks from Penn Station (depending on whether your apartment is at the eastern or western end of the CGAB).
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Now, if only I could win a couple hundred million dollars from the Powerball or MegaMillions lottery, I could become the preeminent (or "pre-eminent" — another of those 826 words with variant spellings) Newark real-estate typhoon. (Yes, that is a tiny joke, playing upon the inclination of hostile people to view me as a blowhard. Not that any sensible person would so regard me, of course.)