Vacant Coffee Plant Will Give Way to Apartments

MORRIS PLAINS, NJ-If the necessarily approvals are granted, as expected, the five-and-a-half-acre site occupied by the old G. Washington Coffee Co. here will soon give way to development of a 116-unit, $18 million apartment complex. The developer is the Short Hills, NJ-based Roseland Property Co.

George C. Washington, a Belgian chemist built the factory and started the G. Washington Coffee Co. in 1926, ran it for another 20 years, and sold it right after World War II. The brand lived on until the late 1950s when a Coca-Cola subsidiary bought the plant and eventually turned it into a Tetley Tea operation. It closed three years ago.