The Kushner real estate family, whose Jared Kushner is President Trump’s son-in-law and close aide, faces further turmoil in Jersey City, which has bet big on its development.
The Kushners are developing six projects in Jersey City, a mile (1.6 km) across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It occupies an area equal to two Empire State Buildings.
Now, the Kushners say they pulled out of bids on the former Honeywell factory site last year after making the highest bid for a 95-acre waterfront parcel, their seventh project.
The Kushner Companies, led by Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, have bid as much as $125 million for the chromium-contaminated Honeywell site, planning to build 3,000 apartments for Orthodox Jews at a discounted price from Williamsburg. was standing. Brooklyn neighborhood.
Honeywell paused sales last year to seek environmental approval from the state and plans to resume talks later this year.
“The decision was made late last year not to go ahead with this project,” Kushner family spokesman James Yoles said Wednesday.
Bloomberg first reported the Kushners’ decision to pull out of the bid.
But Jersey City Mayor Stephen Flopp cast a shadow over existing Kushner projects as well. An $820.8 million twin-tower complex known as One Journal Square.
A joint venture between Kushner Companies and KABR Group, the complex will include 1,476 apartments, shops and office space. WeWork, his third company to build shared office spaces, recently dropped out of the project. Kushner Companies is in talks to buy his WeWork stake in the project, according to Yolles, a spokesman for the group.
The development had already received state approval for more than $90 million in tax credits for the complex’s 10-story foundation and one of two towers. WeWork’s loss reduced that amount to his $34 million.
Last week, the city suspended the developer’s request for additional grants interim because the complex’s components had changed over time and the total grant package exceeded what the city had given to other projects in its neighborhood. The plan, which will be built in two phases, calls for more apartments and less office space than originally proposed.
“Our current proposal for One Journal Square will provide Jersey City with 4,000 much-needed union jobs and $180 million in tax revenue over the next 30 years,” Yores said. He said the developer has changed the project to focus more on housing and retail based on the market.
Jared Kushner was the chief executive officer of the Kushner Companies until joining the White House in January. But last weekend, his sister Nicole Meyer alluded to her family’s ties to the Trump administration when she pitched the Journal Square project to a prospective Chinese investor.
Kushner and KABR recently removed some of the office space that had won state tax breaks and added more apartments. City officials say these changes must be approved by the city planning board, but Kushner disputes that need.
The Kushners opened Trump Bay Street, a 53-story residential tower in Jersey City, last year. There are two of his commercial projects in the planning stages and his third residential tower in Journal Square, which is 72 stories high with 741 units.