Jersey Digs is a news organization and has no affiliation with this project. Please direct all inquiries to the developers or the Township of Irvington.

The Township of Irvington, located just west of Newark, will soon be home to The HillTop, a large mixed-use multi-phase development. The project is being developed at a six-acre lot where the Irvington General Hospital once stood at 832 Chancellor Avenue, between Park Place and Krotik Place, not far from the borders of Union, Hillside, and Maplewood.

The Barnabas Health-owned hospital was built on former farmland in 1924, according to Images of America: Irvington, but shut its doors in 2006. The building sat abandoned until it was acquired by HillTop Partners, MM, LLC of Irvington for $1 million in 2013, according to NJ Parcels records, and was torn down over a year ago. Construction on the new project, which is being developed by HillTop Partners MM, LLC, Kapwood, LLC of Maplewood, and Manhattan-based Lettire Construction’s Urban Builders Collaborative, is now underway, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held back in 2015.

The HillTop received the 2016 Transformative Project Award from the Greater Newark LISC, whose website states that it will contain 650 apartments, in addition to 25 two-family homes and 15,000 square feet of commercial space. A daycare center and a restaurant are also planned for the project, according to township records.

The development’s first phase will be a five-story building called The Gillepsie, the Greater Newark LISC reports, adding that The Gillepsie was awarded a 9% tax credit award from the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency. According to TD+Partners, 80% of the 113 units in the $30 million building will be affordable, while the remaining 20% will be market rate. Perkins Eastman is listed as the project architect, and Prudential, JPMorgan Chase, and the National Equity Fund are among the listed development partners.

In a release published in 2015, Associate Principal Eric Fang of Perkins Eastman stated in part that “we designed this development to respond to the site’s natural topography,” and that “the buildings will step down to follow the hill’s contours and be broken up to create the sense of a residential village as opposed to a project or complex.”

Project developer Adenah Bayoh, who is the owner of the IHOP locations in Irvington and Paterson, told Jersey Digs that part of the project should be completed in early fall of this year.

“This project is important because it’s the redevelopment of a blighted property that’s across the street from a school zone; so not only will it bring high quality housing to the community, but it will also bring a new level of safety for its children,” she said in a statement, adding that “the project will also serve as a catalyst for additional development in Irvington.”

The HillTop property, which features views of the Manhattan skyline is located near Garden State Chancellor Park and the Garden State Parkway, and NJ Transit’s Bus 39 to Newark’s South Ward and Downtown Newark stops directly in front of the lot.

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