JERSEY CITY-Construction is under way on Hamilton Square, a mixed-use project that at build-out will combine 300 residential condos with 24,000 sf of ground-floor retail space. A first phase of 126 loft-style condos and the retail space is slated for delivery later this year, with an initial offering of the residential units scheduled to start in April.

Hamilton Square, which fronts this city's two-acre Hamilton Park, is rising on the site of the former St. Francis Hospital in Downtown. The project, the cost of which hasn't been released, is a combination of adaptive reuse of the old hospital and new construction.

"We're restoring the seven-story, 1920s building on the corner of Erie and Ninth streets," says Eric Silverman, a principal of the locally based Exeter Property Co., developer of Hamilton Square. "And an 11-story building on McWilliams Place and Pavonia Avenue will be converted to condominiums and retail space in our initial phase. This is a new chapter in the history of this address. We plan on continuing the prominence of this property by creating this mixed-use building. This is a neighborhood rooted in history, family and architecture."

Designed by Charles Jordan or the New York City-based H. Thomas O'Hara Architect, Hamilton Square will incorporate a number of elements of the property's prior use. The site plan also calls for underground parking, and some of the residences will have private balconies or terraces with views of the Jersey City and Manhattan skylines, according to Silverman. The building is also being redeveloped to "green" standards.

Part of the plan for the initial phase calls for Pavonia Avenue, which has been closed off since 1970, to be reopened as a cobblestone street for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The reopened street will lead to one of the project's main residential lobby entrances.

As far as the retail space, "negotiations are currently under way" with several potential tenants, Silverman says. While declining to name possible tenants, he notes that potential uses include a private gym, a restaurant and bar, a noodle shop, bakery, pharmacy and a bank branch.