Demolition begins for downtown project

A demolition project to make way for two new housing complexes in downtown Newark began this week.

Independent Investors, LLC, the owner of Klondike Kates, proposed the original plan in December 2011. Both projects are adjacent to the restaurant.

A project at 144-150 East Main Street, to be called Kates Place, will be a four-story building consisting of 2,760 square feet of retail space on the first floor and 22 two-bedroom apartments upstairs. It will replace the vacant building where Gecko Fashions, Cats Eye Hair Salon and the Marine recruiting station once resided.

A nearby complex at 21-27 Choate Street will be a 7,000-square-foot building consisting of five, three-story townhouses and be named Choate Street Townhouses. The townhouses will have four bedrooms and attached garages.

The site will replace the former Casablanca Restaurant that is currently used for storage.

The housing complexes will have a density of approximately 25 units per acre, in close comparison to the new Campus Edge Apartments located at 210 East Delaware Avenue, offiicials said.

The project will occupy a total 1.079 acres, but a half acre of the site is presently leased to the city as part of Municipal Parking Lot #4. That agreement will remain intact, and the new project will allow city parking officials to reconfigure the lot to slightly increase the number of parking spaces.

City Planning Director Maureen Feeney Roser said she expects the demolition will only last a couple of days. She said the entire construction project should be completed in 11 months.

The plan is to move on it as quickly as possible, she said.

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Demolition begins for downtown project