By Claire Drewniak
How confident are Morristown officials and developers in the success of M Station?
They broke ground on the massive office redevelopment in the middle of a pandemic… on Friday the 13th.
“We look forward to delivering a meaningful project at a time when economic development of this caliber and significance is sorely needed in our communities and state to move forward,” said Steven J. Pozycki, founder & CEO of SJP Properties.
Speaking through a mask, like everyone else at the event, he described M Station as the “most significant commercial development in the last 30 years in Morristown.”
“I can’t be happy enough for all the citizens of Morristown and what this is going to bring to our downtown… it just elevates us to another level,” Mayor Tim Dougherty said of an office project town officials hope will transform a strip mall into a magnet for jobs and local spending.
Plans call for nearly 400,000 square feet of offices and retail in two buildings, with a parking garage, public promenade and plaza, and traffic improvements including a roundabout at the intersection of Morris and Spring streets.
If fully built—a two-phase process that could take a dozen years—M Station may bring 1,400 jobs, patrons for local businesses, and a five-fold increase in property taxes paid by the former Midtown Shopping Center strip mall, town officials have estimated.
New York-based SJP Properties broke ground Friday for phase one, “M Station East.” It’s slated to include the six-story New Jersey headquarters for Big Four accounting firm Deloitte, the traffic roundabout, and half of the parking deck. The developer has agreed to complete this work by October 2022.
M Station West, a seven-story office/retail building, will come later, if market conditions are favorable. Otherwise, SJP must create a passive recreation park.
The town had earmarked the strip mall for redevelopment nearly two decades ago.
The mayor thanks his administrator, planner, redevelopment counsel and M Station’s attorney, Frank Vitolo, at groundbreaking. Video by Claire Drewniak for MorristownGreen.com, Nov. 13, 2020:
Approved unanimously by the council, M Station was controversial as plans unfolded for two years before the council and planning board.
Lamenting the closure of the mall and its affordable restaurants, some residents warned of gentrification.
Cristiano Goncalez, who works at an eatery across the street, said he knew all the businesses that were displaced and many of the 200 people he estimates worked there. He said he other locals wonder what happened to them.
“Morristown has become harder to live in for people like me, it’s gotten more expensive,” Goncalez said.
Others have questioned the viability of office buildings in a post-COVID, work-from-home world.
Citing economic hardships wrought by the pandemic, the developers requested — and received — a break that frees them from paying school- and county taxes.
Councilman Robert Iannaccone opposed that tax break, known as a PILOT (for Payments In Lieu of Taxes), and a bond deal that he says shifts costs of promised traffic improvements to the town.
Thanking the mayor and town officials for their support, Peter Bronsnick, an SJP principal, on Friday asserted the project will become a pillar that helps Morristown sustain itself as a viable “live, work, play, and stay” destination.
“M Station will deliver true headquarters-quality office and retail space to Morristown’s downtown, which will attract high caliber tenants that contribute positively to the town’s commercial base, and support Morristown civic and philanthropic entities,” Bronsnick said in the chilly, rain-swept Morris Street parking lot, where demolition of the old storefronts is under way.
SJP Properties has partnered with Scotto Properties, owner of the strip mall and several local restaurants. In 2004, the town designated the four-acre tract as a blighted area needing redevelopment.
Friday the 13th may scare the superstitious. But the mayor cited Deloitte as a very good omen.
“We are so thrilled to have you anchor this part of downtown…We’re very, very, very excited about it,” Dougherty said.
Kevin Coughlin contributed to this report.
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