Developer eyes Wayne office park for 350-unit residential project
By: Philip DeVencentis
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
WAYNE - A deep-pocketed homebuilder with projects in 24 states want to develop an off-campus section of William Paterson University to put up hundreds of town homes.
.....
Toll Brothers Incorporated plans to build 350 units, including 280 townhouses. as well as 70 apartments for low-income families, at 1600 Valley Road, according to documents field by its attorney in state Superior Court in Paterson.
..... The Pennsylvania-based developer is partnering with a limited livability company from Princeton called
Pine street Ventures to redevelop the 50-acre property, assessed at $20 million.
..... The proposal is very much preliminary.
.....
It only came to light now because Toll Brothers is challenging the township's fair share plan, which officials field in court over the summer. [2025] Though that challenge, the developer included early details of the project. the property includes a five-story building, which William Paterson university uses for the Chritos M. Cotsakos College of Business and the College of Education.
..... Mary Beth Zeman, a William Paterson spokesperson, acknowledged ongoing negotiations with the developer. "The university was approached by a developer expressing interest in purchasing our 1600 Valley Road property for residential housing," she said on September 34. [2025]
..... "The developer coincidentally contacted the university, while we're working on a master-planning process to address the possibility of relocating the Collage of Education and the Cotsakos College of Business to our main campus," Zeman said.
.....
A conceptual site plan included with the Toll Brothers court filing shows the 145,949-square-foot building would inerrant intact and that units for low-income families would be located there.
.....
The property also features a pond and a large parking lot, some of which covered by solar panels. A vast portion of the land is forested - the natural landscape expends north, where it eventually touches High Mountain Park Preserve.
..... William Paterson University, with more ham 9,400 students, bought the Valley Road property for $9.5 million in July 2000 form International Paper Company, now headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. University officials celebrated the expansion, but the switch to public ownership meant that the township lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual tax revenue.
..... The precast concrete building at the Valley Road property opened as offices for about 500 employees of UnionCamp corporation in August 1969, said Herald News story published at the time.
..... International Paper acquired Union Camp, a rival paper maker, i a deal announced in November 1998.
Three other residential projects nearby
..... The William Paterson property is within a half mile of three other residential projects that are planed or under construction.
..... AvalonBay Communities Incorporated is nearly finished building a 473-unit complex of apartments and town-homes at the intersection of Barbour Pond and Valley Roads. In additions, the Virgina-based developer plans to construct 275 units at a different site, even closer to the university property.
.....
The township is also under contract with a Montclair developer to build a fully affordable project of no fewer then 100 units, including 10 for people with disabilities, on wooded parcel at 1805 Valley Road.