The Jersey City waterfront, via Pixabay

A big-money battle between Airbnb and the hotel industry may leave small hosts stranded after a decisive vote in Jersey City Tuesday. Voters in New Jersey’s second-largest city faced a referendum on new, beefed-up regulations on short-term rentals intended to limit the reach of Airbnb and other home-stay companies. According to the New York Times, voters overwhelmingly decided in favor of a law that will require owners of short-term rental properties to get a permit from the city, put a cap on the size and number of units that can be used for short term rental purposes, and limit short-stay rentals to a maximum of 60 days a year if the owner is not physically on-site. The ordinance also bars all renters from using their units as short-term rentals.

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Photo via Flickr cc

Jersey City is getting ready to celebrate its sixth annual Fourth of July Festival, an epic full day celebration from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Exchange Place Plaza. The free event, called 50STAR FIRESHOW, will feature a carnival, beer festival, and a concert headlined by Jersey City’s own Akon and rapper Pitbull, before culminating with the largest fireworks display in the state.

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All images by Ben Gancsos, courtesy of District Kitchen

Harborside, the Jersey City waterfront district, opened its ground-level food hall, District Kitchen, this week. Located just seven minutes from Manhattan via the PATH, the Mack-Cali led development brings 13 new culinary vendors to the Harborside Atrium at 210 Hudson Street. Designed by TPG Architecture, the 12,750-square-foot space features nods to Jersey City’s industrial past and classic striped black-and-white floor tiles. The eclectic offerings come from local purveyors and include everything from pizza and burgers to Turkish and Indian food to a banana pudding bar.

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Sketch by Richard La Rovere courtesy of the Journal Square Community Association

A Jersey City community association wants to turn an abandoned rail cut into a 17-acre High Line-style park. The Journal Square Community Association is proposing turning what used to be the Erie Railroad’s four-track cut through the Palisades into a public park. Better known as the Bergen Arches, the historic rail-cut borders Journal Square and opened in 1910, but has not been in use since the late 1950s. Since then, the Bergen Arches has become an overgrown wooded area in the expanding Journal Square neighborhood.

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Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop just announced the newest phase of development on New Jersey City University’s University Place project, Jersey Digs reports. The University and Strategic Development Group will break ground in early 2019 on University PAC, a state-of-the-art performing arts complex. University PAC, a 500-seat theater, and the Center for Music, Dance and Theater, a cutting-edge academic complex for the performing arts will serve as the centerpiece of University Place, serving both the university and the larger community.

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Rendering via Genesis Companies

Providing Jersey City residents some rental relief as the market continues to grow, a new housing building opened this week and launched a lottery for 100 percent affordable units. Located at 455 Ocean Avenue in the Greensville section of Jersey City, the five-story building includes 64 apartments, with five of the units set aside for homeless veterans and seven reserved for those earning at or below 30 percent of the area median income. Dubbed the Dr. Lena Frances Edwards Apartments, the rental’s remaining units reserved for those earning 60 percent of the AMI ($66,500/year for a family of four) include $1,014/month one-bedrooms, $1,217/month two-bedrooms and $1,407/month three-bedrooms.

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Photo by Jennifer Brown for Jersey City

A bigger, louder and longer Fourth of July celebration is coming to Jersey City this year. Beginning at noon on Wednesday, a 10-hour free festival will hit the Hudson River waterfront, featuring several beer gardens, food trucks, a concert headlined by Snoop Dogg and the state’s largest fireworks display. The all-day event, called 50STAR FIRESHOW, is estimated to welcome more than 200,000 people to Exchange Place.

Jersey City brought back its own fireworks event in 2014 after NYC moved its display to the East River, and the size of celebration has grown each year. “I think the Jersey City side of Hudson River is going to be the place that people want to be for the 4th of July this year. Period. Between Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Grucci, and Snoop, we are raising the bar,” Mayor Steven Fulop said.

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Old rendering of One Journal Square via KABR Group

A partnership headed by Charles Kushner filed a lawsuit in federal court in Jersey City Wednesday, blaming the mayor’s “political animus” toward all things Trump–and, therefore, Kushner–for sending the company’s residential complex into default earlier this year. According to the New York Times, the suit claims that Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop issued a default against the $900 million development in order to “appease and curry favor with the overwhelmingly anti-Trump constituents of Jersey City.”

More political animus, this way

Interior ‘canyon’ with stepped terraces via HWKN.

Following the much-documented Jersey City launches of the Journal Squared and Ellipse projects, a new rental building has opened at 485 Marin Boulevard in JC’s Hamilton Park neighborhood, known for its historic Victorian homes and streets lined with colorful cafes, shops and restaurants. The new residence comes from KRE Group– the developers behind the Journal Squared project–and is offering studios and one, two and three-bedroom apartments that start at $2,300 for a studio with the added incentive of a free month on a 13-month lease and two free months on a 26-month lease.

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In a stunning renovation, architecture firm Fogarty Finger Architects transformed this Jersey City home, a former 1800s propeller pattern factory in the Paulus Hook neighborhood, into a luxurious single-family residence (h/t Dezeen). The original building was a workshop for Alexander Thomson & Sons Pattern Makers, a company that cast wooden forms into metal for propellers. The firm preserved the historic building shell, added a second floor, and excavated the cellar, increasing the living space from the original 3,500 square feet to 8,500 and incorporating unique outdoor space at each level.

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