A Bayonne developer is pulling off a $20 million flip on a piece of property near Route 78 by allowing the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) to take the land for the proposed controversial Turnpike expansion project.
The Alessi Organization, the current owner of the former Marist High School site on Kennedy Boulevard, would be paid $31.1 million for the land under the eminent domain proceedings initiated by the NJTA in April. The developer had sought more, but an attorney said the company is unlikely to contest the NJTA’s figure.
Alessi bought the 9.5-acre property for $11.4 million in 2021, a year after the former Catholic school closed. The Bayonne school district and the city declined to purchase it.
“The Turnpike (Authority) is determined to acquire the property for a public roadway project and the court has authorized the taking,” Joseph Grather, an attorney for Alessi, told The Jersey Journal Thursday. “My client will seek just compensation in the court proceedings.”
The NJTA has eyed the former Marist site for the Turnpike expansion since at least April 2021, wanting to use it as a construction staging area and for a drainage pit. The eminent domain proceedings were first reported by Hudson County View.
The new development is the latest twist in the four-year saga surrounding the property and its potential role in the NJTA’s controversial $10 billion Newark Bay Hudson County Extension proposal that would widen the roadway from Newark to the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City.
The expansion has met resistance from environmental advocates and local Hudson County officials who say it will bring more traffic congestion and air pollution to the area, and have called on state officials to instead steer the money for it into public transit.
Alessi demolished the school buildings and cleared the site after purchasing the land, all while paying $271,000 per year in taxes since then, according to an appraisal report commissioned by the NJTA that was posted in court filings.
The $31.1 million offer was based on a optimal use value. The report described the “highest and best use” of the property as a “684-unit, multi-family rental project” consisting of three- to six-story buildings and associated parking structures.
Despite having knowledge of the NJTA’s interest in the property, the city approved a redevelopment plan that would’ve allowed Alessi, a campaign donor to Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis, to build up to 14 stories of new housing, a six-story self-storage facility or office space there.
Alessi was considering developing a 1,074-unit residential development on the land consisting of four-to-14 story high-rise buildings and parking structures, as well as a 20,000 square-foot retail building, according to the appraisal report.
While Alessi had initially rejected the NJTA’s $31.1 million offer for the land last December, it did not contest the eminent domain usage, with Grather saying it’s “very difficult to successfully challenge a governmental agency when they’re exercising the power of eminent domain for a public use.”
Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Jablonski allowed for the eminent domain proceedings to move forward in a May 24 court order, appointing three commissioners to examine and appraise the property and permitting the NJTA to enter the site and conduct studies and tests.
Davis did not comment on the eminent domain proceedings, but he reiterated his support for the Turnpike expansion. When asked whether he regrets not buying the property for a new school, he distanced himself from that idea, saying that it was the school board’s decision to back out of it.
The NJTA did not respond to a request for comment on the eminent domain proceedings.
