Morristown Station redevelopment moves closer to construction with $40 million loan
MORRISTOWN — A long-discussed redevelopment project next to NJ Transit’s Morristown station is moving closer to construction, as the sponsors behind a planned apartment-and-retail building have secured a $40 million construction loan, according to commercial real estate reporting and coverage of the project.
The project, branded as Morristown Station and tied to the address One Lackawanna Place, is proposed for a triangular parcel bordered by Lumber Street, Lackawanna Place, and Lafayette Avenue, just east of the historic station building. Plans call for an 89-unit, five-story building with 76 market-rate apartments, 13 affordable units, and about 5,111 square feet of ground-floor retail. Reported plans indicate the apartment mix will lean heavily toward larger units, with about 74 percent expected to be two-bedrooms, and the rest split between studios and one-bedroom units.
The financing was provided by Truist Bank and arranged in a deal announced by CBRE, an important sign that the project may be shifting from planning and approvals into execution. A construction loan does not guarantee immediate groundbreaking, but it is often a major step for a redevelopment site with a long approval history.
Morristown Station is designed as a transit-oriented development, meaning its central premise is proximity to rail service and downtown walkability. Town planning documents describe the area around the station as a key “gateway” to Morristown, where design decisions shape how riders and visitors experience downtown as soon as they step off the platform. In the town’s Train Station Redevelopment Plan, officials framed the effort as part of a broader push to revitalize underused properties near the historic station, including parcels around Lumber Street, Lackawanna Place, and Lafayette Avenue.
That planning effort has been years in the making. According to the redevelopment plan, the Town Council directed a preliminary investigation of the station-adjacent blocks in 2006, followed by a public hearing and a finding that the area qualified as an Area in Need of Redevelopment under New Jersey’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law. The Morristown Planning Board approved the One Lackawanna Place project in January 2025.
The redevelopment plan does more than simply allow housing near the tracks. It lays out detailed standards meant to ensure the project functions as a deliberate civic front door to downtown. Among the plan’s stated goals are strengthening pedestrian connections between the station and the Morristown Green, improving the street-level experience, and encouraging architecture that takes cues from the historic station building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The plan specifically calls for an “abstract reference” to the station rather than literal imitation.
The size of the project reflects limits already built into the redevelopment framework. The plan’s bulk standards list a maximum of 89 dwelling units and up to 10,000 square feet of commercial space. It also spells out parking requirements totaling 161 spaces, including 132 structured spaces and 24 surface spaces, along with a designated passenger pick-up and drop-off area.
Affordable housing is also built into the station-area plan. The redevelopment framework cites Morristown’s requirement that 15 percent of residential rental units be affordable, while also allowing part of that obligation to be met off-site under the town’s housing planning rules. For Morristown Station specifically, the reported inclusion of 13 affordable units out of 89 aligns with the project being treated as a rental development with an on-site affordability component.
The station project is not the only major redevelopment moving forward near the transit hub. In January 2025, the Planning Board also approved The Metro at 22 Lafayette Avenue, a separate 126-unit mixed-use redevelopment of the former Staples strip mall property. Elsewhere nearby, the broader M Station office redevelopment on Morris Street has also been promoted as part of a transit-adjacent mixed-use district.
For residents and commuters, the focus now shifts to practical questions: when construction will begin, how the site will be staged, and how the work will affect station access and nearby streets. Morristown’s redevelopment plan anticipates those issues through required studies and site plan materials covering traffic, loading, pick-up and drop-off operations, and related street-level logistics. If built as envisioned, Morristown Station would replace an underused parcel beside the train station with new housing, retail space, parking, and redesigned streetscape elements meant to reshape how people enter downtown Morristown by rail.