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NEWPORT N.J.

QUEST

THE DESIGN ISSUE

March 2008

NEWPORT, N.J.

Twenty-five years ago, Samuel LeFrak was knee-deep in the development of Gateway Plaza, the first residential tower in Battery Park City, when he looked across the river and realized the waterfront with the most potential was right in front of him – in New Jersey. The site of the former Pavonia trading colony (Henry Hudson had docked here upon discovering “his” river) had, by the 1980s, deteriorated into an industrial wasteland. Lefrak just needed to build a city from nothing.

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Jersey Cityans find warm, fuzzy feeling on outdoor rink ice

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

BY RUSSELL BEN-ALI

Star-Ledger

As thousands crowded Rockefeller Center last week for the lighting of the Christmas tree, a scene in Jersey City promised a new holiday tradition on this side of the Hudson.

The massive Newport development has had its own tree-lighting ceremony for years, but last week it also opened an outdoor ice-skating rink on the waterfront, part of a long-running effort to pump some city life into the comparatively moribund downtown. Cassandra Richards, who skated with her 4-year-old son, Lawrence, said: "The Rockefeller tree thing happens every year, and it's a big to-do, particularly if you're a true New Yorker or a tourist. I'm attached to the community, so it's good to see something like this happening here."

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Newport lights tree, opens ice rink

Jersey Journal

By Paul Koepp

Wednesday November 28, 2007, 6:52 PM

Rockefeller Center didn't have the only holiday party tonight. Jersey City's Newport section held its own tree lighting, at Newport Town Square, followed by the opening of a brand new outdoor ice rink.

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NEW CHILL SPOT

Waterfront ice rink is opening tomorrow

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

By KEN THORBOURNE

JERSEY JOURNAL

Forget Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park. Jersey City now has another ice skating rink. Newport Skates, operated by the same company that runs "The Pond" at Bryant Park in Manhattan, opens tomorrow night in the Newport section on the Jersey City waterfront.

"It is a very appealing amenity to the entire community," said Jamie LeFrak, a managing partner in the family run LeFrak Organization, the developer of Newport. "And the usage and rental charges are very low, half of what you'd pay in Manhattan."

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A 'Great City' Rises in Jersey

DETOURS | Newport developing a name for itself along Hudson River

Chicago Sun-Times

November 4, 2007

Dave Hoekstra

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The Garden State has been my pathway to New York. When I was a toddler my dad was a purchasing agent at the Swift & Company meatpacking plant in Jersey City. During the 1990s I crashed at the home of the Aquanetta's lead guitarist in Hoboken, N.J., and we'd see Merle Haggard at Tramps in New York City. No destination with that story -- I just love mentioning the Aquanettas and Hag in the same sentence.

Now that Hoboken is priced up, the smart traveler checks out Jersey City.

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City Sleeker

Big Apple-style buildings grow in Jersey City

NY Post

10/26/07

By Adam Bonislawski

“To build a Manhattan-style building is to attract a Manhattan-style buyer.” That, says K. Hovnanian project director Tom Graham, was the idea behind 77 Hudson, the developer’s Jersey City new-construction high-rise. What, exactly, is it that makes a building “Manhattan-style?” Well, for starters, how about a Richard Meier-style glass curtain wall?

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Ultimate Waterfront Community in Jersey City

New York Times Magazine

September 9, 2007

Newport, the largest and most successful mixed-use community in the world, is being developed by the LeFrak Organization on the Jersey City Hudson River waterfront, directly across from Manhattan’s Financial District.

This $10 billion “total living” community on several hundred acres is comprised of 4,660 apartment homes; 5 million sq. ft. of office space in eight modern buildings; two million square feet of retail shopping; a 190-room hotel; restaurants; parks; playgrounds; two private schools; a half-mile section of the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway; a marina; health club and fitness center; and parking for several thousand vehicles. An on-site PATH Station takes Newport commuters to and from Manhattan in six minutes.

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HOW FAR TO THE ORGANIC ARUGULA?

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

New York Times

Published: August 5, 2007

Time was — only a few years ago, in fact — that New Jersey real estate agents would play up the “latte factor” when marketing apartments in and around a downtown area. “Look, it’s only three blocks from Starbucks!” seemed to be the sales mantra for every new condominium development and rental building. More recently, though, it appears there is an amenity even hotter than coffee: fancy food.

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Living the high life in Jersey City

Sunday, July 15, 2007

By JENNIFER V. HUGHES

SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

JERSEY CITY -- Audrey Ng, 3½, is eager to show off her new home, even though there are still contractors painting the walls pale blue and there are wires hanging from the ceiling, awaiting light fixtures. "Hey, come on, guys!" she shouted as she escorted her father, Darryl, and her mother, Jane, carrying little sister, Bridget, 17 months. While Audrey is most thrilled about the pink princess ceiling fan in her room, the truly spectacular features of the two-bedroom condominium are the floor-to-ceiling windows, which run the length of one wall, revealing the stunning Manhattan skyline. "You can't get a view like that in New York. In New York, you get the million-dollar view of New Jersey," said Darryl Ng.

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REAL ESTATE SHOWCASE WATERFRONTS

NEW YORK MAGAZINE

June 18, 2007

SHORE THING

The first 28-story tower at the Shore Condominium Residences at Newport in Jersey City sold out in no time, so it’s no surprise that only a handful of residences remain unsold in the second tower, including two- and three-bedroom duplexes and some four-bedroom triplex sky homes.

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Planned Community in N.J. Seeks To Poach New Yorkers

By Elizabeth Solomont

Special to the Sun

June 7, 2007

Manhattanites feeling crowded in their closet-size apartments should try living in New Jersey, a new ad campaign airing in New York City suggests.

Featuring a fictional couple, Bob and Cindy, who are forced to live in a closet because of soaring real estate prices, the ads tout Newport, N.J., a planned community developed by the LeFrak Organization.

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THE SIXTH BOROUGH

By Jason Sheftell

Daily News

May 18, 2007

If you were ever looking to live anywhere besides the five boroughs, your first choice should be Jersey City-already home to many New Yorkers who jumped at the Manhattan skyline views and low housing prices.

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JERSEY PEARL

JERSEY PEARL

MINUTES FROM MANHATTAN, EMERGING JERSEY CITY IS ON THE RIGHT PATH

By ADAM BONISLAWSKI

February 22, 2007 -- THERE'S a certain type of New Yorker who'd never move to New Jersey no matter what. Some people are scared of spiders - these folks are afraid of crossing the Hudson River. That's just how they are. These people can be forgiven for having never heard of the Jersey City building boom. For the rest of us, though, the rise of the city across the way should by now be a familiar story. A good 30 percent cheaper than most of Manhattan and just minutes away on the PATH from either Midtown or Wall Street, the city began its turnaround in the mid-1980s, as residential and office buildings started popping up along its waterfront. Today, high-rises line the river and the streets are busy with young professionals.

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JERSEY CITY: MODEL OF URBAN FUTURE?

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

April, 2007

JERSEY CITY — Once, this was a city of browns and grays. Railroads owned a third of the land, and trains rumbled night and day to the cacophonous riverfront. Factories belched fumes and leaked chemicals. "Nobody cared," says Bob Leach, born here in 1937. "Smoke meant jobs." And those were the good years. Then, in the 1960s, the railroads went broke. Rail yards were abandoned, piers rotted, factories closed. In the 1970s alone, the city lost 14% of its population and about 9% of its jobs. Now Jersey City has come back as its own antithesis: clean, green and growing — an example, urban planners say, of how the nation can accommodate some of the additional 100 million Americans expected by 2040 without paving over every farm, forest and meadow.

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A Trickle, Not a Flood, of Moves to New Jersey

New York Times

November 15, 2006

In the largest deal of the year so far in New Jersey, Citibank sublet 316,775 square feet from UBS at its 2-year-old building in the Newport Office Center just south of the Exchange Place PATH station.

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NO BUBBLE AT NEWPORT

New York Post

August 11, 2006

Newport, Jersey City -- Surpassing expectations, even for this region’s thriving condo market, the Shore Club, Condominium Residences at Newport’s North Tower – an imposing 28-story glass condominium now under construction at Newport on the Jersey City Waterfront – has signed sales contracts on 60 of its 220 residences just three weeks after opening for sales.

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Developers plan to bolster Jersey City waterfront

BY STEVE CHAMBERS

The Star-Ledger - June 2, 2006

www.starledger.com

Nearly two decades to the day after they broke ground on a questionable gamble to transform Jersey City's waterfront, members of the LeFrak and Simon families unveiled plans yesterday for four more buildings in the Newport complex. Top government officials in attendance, including Gov. Jon Corzine and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), praised the influence of the families in transforming the northeast corner of Jersey City into the leading edge of the Hudson River Gold Coast.

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LeFraks Envision Even Bigger Skyline Across Hudson

By CHARLES V. BAGLI, New York Times

Published: June 1, 2006 - www.nytimes.com

Standing atop a condominium tower under construction at the Newport complex in Jersey City, Richard LeFrak looked south at a forest of green-glass commercial towers and brick residential buildings that seem to leap from the waterfront. His family and their partner built them, 20 in all. Although the LeFraks cannot lay claim to the tallest tower (the 800-foot Goldman Sachs building at Paulus Hook), they have built more than a third of the high-rise skyline that has grown up along Jersey City's once dilapidated waterfront. And today, exactly 20 years after his father, Sam, embarked on a seemingly quixotic bid to transform these rusty old railroad yards into Newport, Mr. LeFrak is announcing plans for another hotel and four more apartment towers.

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In With The New Newport

In With The New Newport

The Bergen Record - Friday, June 2, 2006

www.northjersey.com

By PRASHANT GOPAL

JERSEY CITY -- The main developer of the landmark Newport office, retail and residential complex announced Thursday that it is adding four more glass-and-steel towers. And Richard LeFrak -- whose late father, Sam LeFrak, broke ground on the Newport City complex on June 4, 1986 -- also announced Thursday that the LeFrak Organization will subsequently build additional buildings to extend the development to the Hoboken line.

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New hotel, 5,000 more apartments...

New hotel, 5,000 more apartments... On 20th anniversary, Newport developers look at next 20 years

Jersey City Reporter - June 2, 2006

www.hudsonreporter.com

Ricardo Kaulessar

A groundbreaking took place Thursday for a new hotel in the city's Newport section, and the developers announced that there are three new towers on the way. The groundbreaking was reminiscent of the initial one 20 years ago today (June 4), when the late New York developer Samuel LeFrak put a shovel in the ground to start developing on the Jersey City waterfront.

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