JERSEY CITY -- On 10th Street, LeFrak is constructing a six-story residential building that will add 163 homes to the popular Hamilton Park neighborhood.
The building's design is not unusual, but its precise location is: about 12 feet above the ground, on top of a stone embankment formerly used by railroad cars ferrying passengers in and out of the Bergen Arches.
Meanwhile, 1,500 feet south, the Sixth Street Embankment, which served the Pennsylvania Railroad for decades in the early 20th Century, remains the focus of a decade-long fight between Steve and Victoria Hyman, who bought the property from Conrail for $3 million in 2005 and want to develop it, and Jersey City and preservationists who say they want to turn the half-mile structure into a High Line-style park.
So, why is there development going up on one embankment but a protracted legal battle to keep development off the other?
The reason is simple, and even city officials and Hymans' attorney agree: Conrail abandoned the 10th Street embankment, as per federal law, and didn't do so with the one on Sixth Street.
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A 1984 document from the Interstate Commerce Commission, a now defunct federal agency whose powers were transferred in 1995 to the Surface Transportation Board, says Conrail received federal OK to abandon the mile-long rail line that used to run along 10th Street. The rail company did not receive federal approval to abandon its line on the Sixth Street Embankment, saying that embankment contained a spur rather than a rail line and did not need to be abandoned before being sold.
Dan Horgan, the Hymans' attorney, said the 1984 document shows Conrail "knew these rail lines that run out to the river need to be abandoned." He wants to know why Conrail abandoned the 10th Street line but not the one his clients' are fighting to control.
"They knew they had to do it," Horgan said.
Conrail is a third-party defendant in a case filed by the Hymans against a Chicago title company in 2009, with the couple alleging the title company has a duty to defend the Hymans in the Sixth Street Embankment case.
A request for comment from Conrail was not immediately returned.
LeFrak's project, known as the Embankment House, will be six stories of 163 residential units, with 86 spaces in a rear parking lot and 37 off-street spaces nearby. The building, set to open next summer, received approval from the city Planning Board in 2006. LeFrak also received the OK for a second, identical building planned for another block of the 10th Street embankment, between Coles and Monmouth streets.
10th Street between Coles Street and Jersey Avenue has been closed to vehicular traffic since July 6 because of construction on the new building. The street is scheduled to re-open on Sept. 15.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.