Perhaps best known for their namesake specialty markets, Newark-born brothers Antonio and Albano Seabra have built a vast empire that includes food stores and real estate holdings. Their latest endeavor could bring something unprecedented to the Ironbound—its first boutique hotel.
Last month, the city’s Zoning Board approved their plans for a 153-room, eight-story hotel at 114-126 Monroe Street. The property is located across the street from their flagship market, Seabra’s, which opened more than 40 years ago.
The Seabras are one of the Ironbound’s largest real estate investors. Other holdings in this multi-million dollar portfolio include a 52-unit apartment building at 274-280 Lafayette Street and the commercial buildings at 250 Lafayette Street, all clustered around the street’s intersection with Monroe Street.
In a city with limited hotel options, the hospitality market remains unproven. The only other hotels in the city are the Robert Treat, near NJPAC, the DoubleTree by Hilton, near Penn Station, and others located near the airport.
The Seabras first revealed their plans for a new Ironbound hotel in 2014—the original plan called for a six-story building with 96 rooms. However, the developers returned to the Zoning Board to amend the plan, which included a total of 106 rooms at that time.
Around that time, IHG’s Hotel Indigo had just opened in a historic high-rise on Broad Street, near Prudential, with a rooftop bar. There was anticipation about what the luxury hotel brand could bring to downtown Newark. However, the hotel didn’t survive; it recently reopened as an apartment building.
Seeing this, one might have expected Seabra’s plan for an Ironbound hotel to be scaled back. Instead, they’re doubling down on the investment, increasing the number of rooms to 153.
“The footprint of the building remains identical to what was previously approved — we’re adding additional stories up,” said Darrel Alvarez, architect and engineer at Comito Associates, the same firm that the developers worked with when the project was approved in 2014.
Pablo Belo, a local developer and the third agent listed under the hotel’s LLC, SB Redevelopment Urban Renewal Co., stated that after obtaining the original approvals, they were scheduled to break ground in 2019; however, the pandemic disrupted their plan. The decision to expand the project came from the Lisbon-based operator Pestana Hotel Group.
“When things normalized, they reapproached us to resurrect the project, but the world is substantially different now,” Belo said.
The building is not only larger than its previous iteration but is three stories taller than the permitted height in the neighborhood, requiring one of the nine variances. The only larger building in the vicinity is the 13-story apartment tower at 55 Union Street. Although the Zoning Board approved the project with a 5-2 vote, chairman Charles Auffant had strong words for what he called an “astronomical increase” in size from the previous plan.
“When this first came before us, as laid out by the board planner, this was an R-3 — what a big ask to put a hotel in an R-3,” Auffant said. “But they came back for an expansion.”
“And now here we are again,” Auffant said. “That’s 37 and a half feet over what’s permitted — this will tower over everything in that area.”
At the 2019 groundbreaking ceremony, former Councilman Augusto Amador admitted during the ceremony that the project had its share of naysayers. “When we talked about a hotel in the Ironbound because of the growth of the Ironbound, people looked at me and said, ‘you’re crazy,’ Amador said.
Belo said the Pestana Hotel Group believes there is an untapped market for reasonably priced accommodations that are close to Manhattan, Penn Station, and the airport. “They have two hotels in New York and they can offer an alternative to their customer based in Newark, just 17 minutes away by train, at a much more reasonable price,” Belo said. “We will attract visitors to Newark that otherwise wouldn’t be here.
