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Jersey City housing development deal expected to send money to schools, city government
By
Michael Sol Warren
Published Oct 22, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. ET
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Boraie Development
By
Michael Sol Warren
Published Oct 22, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. ET
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Work is underway on a Jersey City housing development that promises to boost affordable housing options and transform a vacant, contaminated tract of land into a hub of urban renewal.
The project’s developers will receive major incentives for the project, including the first city tax abatement approved under Mayor James Solomon. It’s the city’s first such abatement to dedicate revenue to local schools.
The Canal Crossing project, to be built by Boraie Development, is expected to bring thousands of new housing units to Jersey City’s Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood, across from the Garfield Avenue stop on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. Work on the project’s first phase began on Wednesday. The first phase, estimated to cost roughly $320 million, will include 508 housing units, 102 of which will be reserved for households earning 50% or less of the area median income.
Plans for the first phase also include about 20,000 square feet of commercial space and a new roughly .75 acre public park.
The Jersey City Council last month approved a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, deal with developers for Canal Crossing’s first phase, exempting it from local property taxes for 30 years in exchange for a share of its revenue. The deal is expected to generate about $1.9 million in revenue to the city in its first year, according to city spokesperson Eric Koch. A tenth of the income is headed to the city school system.
It comes in a year when Jersey City is depending on a $120 million bailout from the state and a 15% property tax increase to shore up its finances — issues a new mayor blames on his predecessor’s affinity for one-shot and short-term cash infusions over sustainable income for the municipality.
Solomon told Gothamist Canal Crossing is a model for development in Jersey City.
“It's an area of the city that's been underinvested. It's going to have genuinely affordable homes, so some with rents $1,000 a month and less, and $1,500 a month and less. And it's going to build real infrastructure,” Solomon said. “We're basically taking an area that had once been contaminated, and we're now building in the roads, the sewers, the electricity — everything you need to create a new neighborhood.”
Jersey City Mayor James Solomon speaks at a groundbreaking for Canal Crossing Wednesday.
Michael Sol Warren / Gothamist
Canal Crossing will be built on the 111-acre site of a former chrome processing facility. Ron Riccio, the court-appointed site administrator overseeing the site’s cleanup, said toxic waste from the chrome operation was later used as fill on the property.
PPG, the paint company, was the last user of the property and has been held responsible for funding the remediation, Riccio said. He estimates that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the cleanup effort, which has included demolishing buildings and removing contaminated soil.
That cleanup work has been ongoing for more than a decade — the soil is cleared for residential development, though remediating groundwater at the site continues, Riccio said.
The project will bring all new infrastructure to a long-vacant lot, setting the stage for further redevelopment in the area. Wasseem Boraie, the principal of Boraie Development, said future phases of Canal Crossing are expected to include another 1,700 housing units.
“We are going to be building in Jersey City for a very long time,” Boraie said.
City Council President Denise Ridley, who also chairs the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, said she spent her childhood using the vacant lot as a shortcut between her aunt’s house and downtown. She said at a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday that she was excited to finally see it transformed.
“Jersey City is looking for projects that bring affordable housing, number one,” Ridley said. “We're looking for projects that bring community give-backs and real investment, and we're looking for projects that bring jobs, and this project checks all those boxes.”
Councilmember Frank Gilmore, who represents the neighborhood, said it was “surreal” to see the project finally start. He said he was most proud that construction would be done by local union laborers — many of whom were on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony.
“ These are people, when I look in a crowd, people I went to school with, people who I was just in a park with last week, people who coach my kids, people who live and are grounded in this community,” Gilmore said. “ They can walk by this building, this project, when it's completed, with their children and say, ‘Guess what, son? I built that.’”
Under the PILOT agreement, the developer will pay the city 10% of the development's gross revenue each year for the first 15 years. The amount that the developer pays to the city will then increase every three years, until there are five years left on the deal. In that final five-year period, the developers will pay the city either 12% of the development’s annual gross revenue, or 80% of the conventional taxes due — whichever is greater.
The Canal Crossing development is being built under a PILOT, a special tax deal that allows local government to collect revenue from the project instead of conventional taxes. Some of the money will be dedicated to Jersey City schools.
Michael Sol Warren / Gothamist
This is Jersey City's first PILOT deal since city leaders adopted an ordinance that requires 10% of new PILOT revenues to be dedicated to Jersey City Public Schools.
It’s a local requirement that is rare in New Jersey. State law does not require municipalities to share their PILOT revenues with school districts, though some state lawmakers have been working to change that. Only a handful of other cities and towns in the Garden State share PILOT money with their schools.
School leaders in Jersey City have long wanted a cut of PILOTs, especially as state aid for the district has been whittled down in recent years. Previous Mayor Steve Fulop signed an executive order in 2017 that was meant to dedicate 10% of new PILOT money for city schools, but that order was never implemented. The new ordinance turns that order’s aspiration into law.
Canal Crossing also received state funding from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s Aspire program in January. That incentive will cover 60% of the cost to build the first phase, up to roughly $165 million
Hudson County leaders in July approved bonding up to $140 million to support Canal Crossing.
Boraie said Canal Crossing wouldn't be a viable development without the investments from all levels of government.
“ It's very easy to finance a project Downtown Jersey City,” Boraie said, referring to the booming development elsewhere in the city. “To get these projects done [in Bergen-Lafayette], a public-private partnership is what's needed.”
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education
housing
new jersey
Michael Sol Warren
Michael Sol Warren covers New Jersey for WNYC and Gothamist, and previously reported on issues around the Garden State for NJ Spotlight News and NJ Advance Media. He can be reached at [email protected].
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