Hess Edgewater NJ site to be developed by The Maxal Group

Sept. 28, 2015 - PRLog -- Edgewater Hess site primed for redevelopment by The Maxal Group.

Clearing the ground last week at 615 River Road in Edgewater, longtime site of a Hess oil tank farm. One of its new owners specializes in remediating soil.

* New owners of former Hess tank farm on Hudson have yet to announce plans

The former Hess Corp. terminal in Edgewater, prime real estate on the Hudson Gold Coast, is being prepped for redevelopment, acquired by two companies for $26 million and already cleared of its oil tanks.

Oil giant Hess sold the nearly 20 acres at 615 River Road late last year to The Maxal Group of New York City and EnviroFinance Group LLC of Denver, according to CoStar, which tracks commercial real estate data. Maxal is developing 1500 Harbor Boulevard in Weehawken as well.

The Maxal Group is a private equity and real estate Development firm. EnviroFinance is a land reuse and redevelopment company with experience "remediating and repositioning environmentally challenged properties for productive reuse," according to the company's website.

The property is one of the riverside tank farms that Hess put up for sale in three North Jersey towns roughly a year ago as it was exiting the retail gasoline business. The oil company's other properties on the market were in Secaucus and Bogota.

The 19.5-acre Edgewater tract is the largest undeveloped waterfront site north of Hoboken, according to several area real estate brokers.

Edgewater Mayor Michael McPartland has appointed a committee that includes members of the Borough Council and Planning Board to meet with representatives of The Maxal Group, said Gregory Franz, the borough administrator.

Franz said an attorney for the company, Brian Chewcaskie of Fort Lee, has been trying to schedule a meeting with the committee to discuss ideas for the site, which straddles River Road. Chewcaskie declined to comment, and McPartland and officials at The Maxal Group's Managing Directors Bruce Sturman and Thomas O'Gara and EnviroFinance executives couldn't be reached for comment.

The most likely proposal for the site would be a mixed-use project with apartments, restaurants and retail,

The oil truck terminal in Edgewater, which dated back to the 1960s, was a remnant of the borough's legacy as an industrial area.

"Especially now that the tanks are gone, it really is imposing how large the area is," Franz said. "There was one [tank] standing within the last few weeks, and it finally came down."

The Edgewater property may need some remediation, but Franz said he doesn't expect it to be much.

"I don't know if the site was contaminated or slightly contaminated," Franz said. "Hess ran a very tight ship, and as old as that particular facility was, there were numerous concrete layers, reinforced steel walls in the tanks. In the whole history of Hess being in town, no one can recall any environmental issue that they had."

The sale of the Hess site is "great news for us," said James Famularo, a senior director at Eastern Consolidated.