24-story megaproject unveiled for Hoboken’s Garage B Redevelopment Area

FBW | October 24, 2025

On October 21, Skylight Real Estate Partners unveiled its megaproject for the Garage B redevelopment site. At this virtual public meeting arranged by the City of Hoboken, Skylight and its architect showed a massive 800,000 square foot, 24-story project built on the 1.2-acre site. The development included an 880-car parking garage, 31,700 square feet of commercial space, 400 residential rental units and a 75,000 square foot public school. The City-owned Garage B, located south of Second Street between Hudson and River Streets, has reached the end of its useful life and thus, must be rebuilt.

Since the 1980s, Hoboken residents have fought against projects such as this, with excessive building heights and densities, that contradict the turn-of-the-20th-century charm that the mile-square city is known for. On X (formerly Twitter) Rob Greene @TheRealLeanMean posted: “This is way worse than I would have imagined. What a monstrosity” and Hoboken2025 @HobokenExposed posted: “Anything but Sky or Light…” 

First Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano also posted on X, “Garage B meeting raised eyebrows. Many unanswered questions.” The Councilman spoke at the virtual meeting complaining that he was not consulted, despite the fact that the project is in his ward. Others asked about the total cost to build this structure, one of several questions the developers were not able to answer. 

During the meeting, to justify the size of the project, a slide was shown pointing to the tallest buildings in the surrounding neighborhood, as if this was the new standard for building heights, ignoring fierce battles dating back to the 1980s concerning high-rise development in Hoboken. (See sidebar.) At 24 stories, this project would loom 10 to 12 stories taller than the Wiley Building, 221 River Street, 333 River and Hudson Square South. The 3 to 5-story buildings nearby on Hudson Street, as well as First Street, would be overwhelmed by the scale of this mega-structure.

 Mayor Bhalla, whose term comes to an end on December 31, sought to put a resolution on the October 22 City Council agenda that would designate Skylight as the redeveloper of the Garage B site. Apparently, there were not sufficient votes on the Council to pass the resolution and it was pulled from the agenda. In July, the Hoboken Council approved a resolution allowing the City to initiate negotiations with Skylight for the development of the municipal garage site. 

Andrew Miller, a founding member of Skylight Real Estate Partners, contributed $5,000 to Mayor Bhalla’s failed campaign for Congress in 2024. Last year, Miller and his partner, Bennat Berger, each made $5,000 donations to Assemblyman John Allen, Bhalla’s former chief of staff. Since 2022, Miller contributed $6,600 to the campaigns of Councilman Michael Russo who is now running to be Hoboken’s next mayor and is a major proponent of Skylight’s project. Last year, Miller also contributed $2,600 to Councilman Ruben Ramos, who is also running for mayor.

Questions have been raised about the developer selection process and if the campaign contributions influenced the City’s decision to select Skylight’s proposal. The City has declined to reveal the other four developers who responded to its request for proposals. 

Proponents of this redevelopment project have touted its goal of providing 20 percent affordable housing and 80 percent workforce housing. At the October 21 virtual meeting, the principals of Skylight did not present a clear strategy for how this goal would be achieved. In Hoboken, redevelopment plans take many years to complete. The City of Hoboken began work on the 40-acre North End Redevelopment Plan 16 years ago and no major projects have yet been completed. The Western Edge Redevelopment Plan began 18 years ago and has yet to break ground.  

There is no question that there is an affordable housing crisis nationwide and Hoboken has been making an effort to address the problem. Since 1988, the City of Hoboken has required development projects of ten units or more to set aside 10 percent of the units for low and moderate households. The healthy pace of new development in town has resulted in the creation of hundreds of affordable units. Major projects currently in the pipeline will produce hundreds more. Since the 1970s, Applied Companies built over 1,300 Section 8 affordable units. Hoboken also has over 1,300 federal public housing projects, some built during the 1950s, and others, for senior citizens, built since the 1970s.