ON3, the reimagining of the sprawling former Hoffmann-La Roche campus in North Jersey, will soon be getting a hotel — with two brands.
Developer Prism Capital Partners said it has secured final site-plan approval from the city of Clifton, New Jersey, for a dual-branded Marriott AC/Element Hotel at ON3. The 266-room hospitality property will offer a rooftop bar and feature both limited-service and extended-stay options for patrons, according to Prism, which is headquartered on the ON3 campus. The seven-story structure will occupy a parcel that’s visible from state Route 3, along Metro Boulevard, according to Prism.
The developer has transformed pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche’s 116-acre former site, which straddles Clifton and Nutley, into a mixed-use site with an array of tenants. ON3 houses roughly 1.45 million square feet of existing office and lab research-and-development space that’s fully occupied, or soon to be occupied, by Japanese drugmaker Eisai, Quest Diagnostics, Ralph Lauren, Modern Meadow, Y-mAbs Therapeutics, and Seton Hall University’s Graduate College of Nursing and School of Health and Medical Sciences.
Dual-branded hotels, where two distinct hotel concepts are paired under one roof, have been a trend in the hospitality industry but are fairly unusual in Northern New Jersey. They provide guests with a choice of different accommodations and price ranges for rooms at one location and allow hoteliers to save money by consolidating amenity space and “back-of-the-house” operations such as housekeeping and food and beverage service.
A dual-branded hotel, a Hampton Inn & Suites and Homewood Suites, two Hilton properties, opened at the Glenpointe office complex in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 2018.
“The city of Clifton understands the immense benefits of a world-class, mixed-use property; it has been a great partner in embracing our vision for ON3 and supporting the development needed to realize its full potential,” Prism Principal Partner Eugene Diaz said in a statement. “The hotel and rooftop bar are long-missing amenities for this area, and by securing the Marriott flag, we continue to establish ON3 as a magnet for industry-leading brands.”
Late last year, Clifton also approved a build-to-suit medical office building at the southeast corner of Metro Boulevard and Route 3 at ON3. The 80,000-square-foot facility has been preleased to Hackensack Meridian Health, which already occupies academic and R&D space at the campus, including its School of Medicine and Center for Discovery and Innovation. The medical office building will include an ambulatory surgical center as well as additional multispecialty practice areas.
Prism said it expects that more than 5,500 people will be employed at ON3 by the end of this year, while the ongoing redevelopment also is creating hundreds of construction jobs.