The city is reviewing plans for a self-storage and retail project at 1195 Edgewood Ave. S. in Murray Hill where a Jones College campus was demolished.
The Silverfield Group and Morales Group propose a three-story, 788-unit self-storage building of 98,000 square feet and a 5,000-square-foot retail building with associated parking and utilities.
Leed Silverfield, president of The Silverfield Group, said construction could start on the self-storage building by the end of April. He expects to choose a contractor by the end of January.
Connelly & Wicker Inc. is the civil engineer.
The 1.66-acre site is at northeast Edgewood Avenue South and Plymouth Street that formerly included what was the Edgewood Avenue Theater that became Jones College.
The Jones College building closed in 2017 and the almost 26,000-square-foot structure was demolished after the city issued a demolition permit Sept. 30.
Development is proposed in phases, with the self-storage and parking in phase one. Retail space construction will follow when a user is identified.
Edgewood Storage LLC, comprising Silverfield Development Co. and Fairfax Properties LLC, paid $1.3 million for the property Sept. 9.
Fairfax is affiliated with Morales Group.
Silverfield said the facility will be branded Extra Space Storage, which will manage the center. His group maintains ownership.
The retail building is in design. “We will start vertical construction once we have a portion of it preleased,” he said.
The parking lot and site work for the retail will be done at the same time as the storage building is constructed.
Silverfield said the retail building, which will front Edgewood Avenue, could be used as retail or restaurant use or both.
“We’ll let the market determine that, but we’ve had early interest from both kinds of tenants,” he said.
Silverfield Cranford Commercial Realty and Morgar Realty Inc. are the leasing agents.
Silverfield said the ownership group preferred not to disclose an investment estimate until it has firm construction costs on both buildings.
Murray Hill neighbors raised concerns about issues that include design, lighting and parking. The city approved administrative deviations to the city zoning code with conditions applying to those issues.
