WCI will build the Watermark, a 12-story, 206-unit luxury condo building with cross-river views of Manhattan on this city's Hudson River waterfront. Site work is just under way for the project, foundation work is expected to start this summer and, with a 22-month construction time line, occupancy is anticipated for the first half of 2007. The cost of the project has not been disclosed.

"WCI has built 65 high rises in Florida, and part of the plan was to bring their development platform to this market," relates Mitchell C. Hochberg, president of WCI's Northeast US region. Hochberg, who founded Spectrum Communities in 1985, sold it to the publicly traded WCI Communities this past May as a means to "expand our existing luxury development base in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and expand into the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts markets."

"The Watermark will change the way people think about living in the New York metro area," Hochberg says. "It will redefine the standard of luxury tower living in this area."

The building is about to rise on a 4.7-acre site on River Road here, Hochberg tells GlobeSt.com. Residences will range in size from 900 sf to 1,940 sf, although penthouses on the top two floors will be much more spacious in the 2,880-sf to 3,300-sf range.

Even before the start of actual construction, "sales will open next month," according to Hochberg. Homes will be priced from the $600,000 range to more than $3 million for the penthouses. Amenities will include a doorman, concierge and valet parking, shuttle service to a local commuter ferry and a private health club, among others. The property will also include guest suites for out-of-town visitors.

WCI currently has a total of some 28 residential towers under construction or being marketed in several states. The company's only other current project in the Garden State is Encore Monroe, a 55-and-up single-family development in Central New Jersey's Monroe Township.