Developer Pitches New Apartments Near Morristown Green

MORRISTOWN, NJ — A new housing development could be brought before the planning board soon, following a successful pitch at a recent town redevelopment meeting.

The Morristown Town Council held a redevelopment meeting last week to discuss several properties on Washington Street that were designated as "in need of redevelopment" several years ago.

Accurate Builders & Developers presented plans to redevelop one of those properties into a five-story structure with apartments and 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail during the meeting.

Morristown would gain 53 new apartments at the corner of Washington and Bank Streets as a result of the proposed development.

Dean Marchetto, the development's architect, stated that the lobby would retain a façade on Washington Street. Everything else in the existing buildings, which date back more than a century, would be demolished and rebuilt.

The units are divided into 15 studio apartments, 16 one-bedroom apartments, two one-bedrooms with a den space, and 20 two-bedroom apartments.

Officials anticipate that the bedroom configurations will need to be adjusted before they can be approved because they will need to provide three-bedroom units.

"These units are all very typical market rate, based on projects that we've done," Marchetto said.

Following the initial presentation, Councilman Stefan Armington inquired about the room size in relation to the total floor plan size. According to Marchetto, studios will be roughly 531 square feet, one-bedroom units will be 739 square feet, and two-bedroom apartments would range from 1,000 to 1,200 square feet.

In terms of parking, Marchetto said that a 29-space underground garage is planned for the back of the building, and additional spaces will be reserved in nearby Morristown Parking Authority facilities for future residents to use.

Councilman Robert Iannaccone verified that all affordable housing units in the development be dispersed throughout the project and not lumped together in one section of the building, a thought that Marchetto agreed with.

The council asked town planner Phil Abramson to comment on the project, questioning whether there should be concerns about creating a Green that will eventually be surrounded by "a bunch of block buildings."

"This is the most downtown part of Morristown. This is the part where there are no side yards, this is the part where there are no front yards. This feels like a real downtown. We should expect some element of buildings that stand at corners like this," Abramson said.

Abramson argued that buildings along North Park Place already have hundreds of linear feet of frontage, having a more profound impact on the identity around the Green.

"This, to me, is important. I think it's critical, and I think it's a positive compared to what's there now," Abramson said.

Only one member of the public spoke up during the meeting, saying that while she liked the design, she hoped the town would invest in more diverse retail developments and fewer apartment buildings to make the town more walkable.

The council voted unanimously to give the administration the authority to create the official redevelopment plan. The planning board will need to review the document before the council votes, which is expected within the next few weeks.