143 Newark Ave. in Jersey City.JPG
143 Newark Ave. in Jersey City, a four-story building that is going to be demolished, as seen on Aug. 23, 2016.
(Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal)
JERSEY CITY -- A Newark Avenue building that was damaged in October 2014 is being demolished as a lawsuit over who is responsible for the damage winds its way through the court system.
143 Newark Ave., a four-story building near Grove Street that was going to house the new location of the Hard Grove Cafe, was left structurally unsound on Oct. 14, 2014, and the building's owners and a city inspector blame excavation work that was being done at the vacant lot next door for the problem.
A stretch of Newark Avenue was closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic that night, with city officials fearing the building was in danger of collapsing. It never did, but the structural damage was enough that the building's owners decided to tear it down, according to city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill.
The owner of the vacant property, 141 Newark. Ave, is Five Star Investment, a Del Forno company. Del Forno is the landlord of a host of properties citywide. A request for comment from Del Forno was not returned.
A request for comment from the owners of the Hard Grove Cafe was not returned. Workers began demolishing the building today.
Hard Grove had originally operated for two decades at the corner of Grove Street and Columbus Drive. Its owners closed that location around January 2014 and intended to reopen on the ground floor of 143 Newark Ave. The new location was set to open two weeks after work on the building was halted because of the structural damage.
A city official on Oct. 14, 2014 filed a report saying excavators working on 141 Newark Ave. dug down at least three feet below the footings of 143 Newark Ave, causing the eastern wall of 143 Newark Ave. to slide down and the interior floors and walls to shift. The building was stabilized after workers reinstalled soil from the vacant lot to shore up 139 and 143 Newark Ave, according to the report.
In its 14-count lawsuit against Five Star and two construction companies hired to do work on the vacant lot, the Hard Grove owners -- C & E Developers -- allege the excavation work was done negligently, resulting in damage to 143 Newark Ave., increased costs to repair the building, the loss of a construction loan given to C & E, lost rental income and profits and more. The lawsuit was initially filed in Hudson County Superior Court on Oct. 29, 2014, and was later amended to include as a defendant an insurance company that C & E alleges has not agreed to pay a claim related to damage to 143 Newark Ave.
C+E was given approval by planning officials in May 2013 to renovate the historic facade of 143 Newark Ave., in which they planned to house 17 units of residential housing plus Hard Grove Cafe.
141 Newark Ave. used to be the home of a four-story building that was demolished in 2007 after a fire broke out that was later blamed on arson. The city envisioned seizing the property via eminent domain and turning it into a walkway -- planners called it a paseo -- a plan that fizzled in 2008. At the time, the owners of the lot said they planned to build a six-story building there with 10 residential units and a bar and restaurant on the ground floor.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.