A second Vermella apartment building, called Phase II in township records, was approved in 2024 but hasn’t been built. It is separate from the District Walk townhomes and from Legacy Place on Tices Lane. Here’s what was approved, and when it’s scheduled.
Drive down Route 18 and there’s a lot of new housing to see.
- Vermella’s first apartment building is open and leasing.
- The District Walk townhomes are going up nearby.
- Over on Tices Lane, Legacy Place is nearly finished.
It would be easy to assume that’s the whole picture.
It isn’t. Another Vermella apartment building, with 240 apartments, has already been approved. It hasn’t been built yet.
Four projects, not one
These names often get mixed together. Here’s the simple version:
- Vermella Phase I is the apartment building already open on Route 18, with about 306 apartments and space for shops and restaurants. It is open and leasing. Eyes on EB has not independently confirmed current occupancy.
- Vermella Phase II is a second, separate apartment building with 240 apartments. It is approved but not built.
- District Walk is a separate project of for-sale stacked townhomes, also part of the Route 18 redevelopment, being built by a Pulte company. Township records list 218 or 219 townhomes, depending on the document.
- Legacy Place is a different development on Tices Lane, by a different developer. Its approval covers 520 apartments and townhomes. It is nearly complete, and no later housing phase has been approved there.
This story is about the second one.
What was approved
The Planning Board approved Vermella Phase II, Application #24-15, on Aug. 28, 2024. The board adopted its written resolution on Oct. 30, 2024. It adopted an amended version on Nov. 13, 2024; the board’s attorney said the changes were not substantive.
- Apartments: 240 rentals.
- 8 studios
- 128 one-bedrooms, including 24 with a den
- 86 two-bedrooms, including 7 with a den
- 18 three-bedrooms
- Affordable: 15 of the 240, spread through the building: 3 one-bedrooms, 9 two-bedrooms and 3 three-bedrooms.
- Parking: 341 spaces inside the building, on a ground-level garage floor and a partial basement level, for residents. The township’s parking requirement was 263.
- Shops: none. Unlike the first building, this one is residential only.
- A public park: the approval also includes a park between the building and the Route 18 traffic circle, with amphitheater-style seating and a dog run.
How tall? The application describes a four-story residential building. At the hearing, the project architect described it as five stories: a ground-floor parking level with four floors of apartments above, plus a partial basement parking level. We did not find a height in feet in the records we reviewed.
Where it is
Township records place it at 253–261 Route 18. The building would sit beside the Route 18 traffic circle, across an internal street from Vermella’s first building, with the new park on the traffic-circle side.
Why only 15 affordable apartments?
The 2016 court settlement that set East Brunswick’s affordable-housing obligation required 115 affordable units across the Route 18 redevelopment area. Legacy Place is providing 100 of them. Vermella’s share is the remaining 15, and all 15 are in this building, as Mayor Brad Cohen explained at the 2024 hearing.
That shared requirement is one reason Legacy Place and Vermella sometimes come up together. They are still separate projects.
Has construction started?
We found no record that construction of the Phase II apartment building has begun.
- Building permits: the township’s amended financial agreement with the developer, adopted in November 2025, lists the Phase II approvals as complete “except for building permits and occupancy related items.”
- The park is moving on its own track:
- Councilman James Wendell reported at the Aug. 10 Council meeting that park construction at Vermella had begun, according to the meeting minutes.
- Councilwoman Dana Winston reported at the July 27 Council meeting that the park, now named Gallery Green, is anticipated to have its grand opening in spring 2027, according to the minutes.
Work on the park is not the same as work on the apartment building.
When is it supposed to be built?
The November 2025 agreement sets this schedule:
- Phase I, Vermella’s first building: completion of construction “no later than December 31, 2026.”
- Phase II, the new apartment building (called Building B in the agreement):
- commencement of construction “six (6) months following completion of Phase I”
- completion of construction “no later than December 31, 2028”
The agreement ties the start to the completion of Phase I, not to a calendar date, and that completion has not been publicly announced.
An earlier estimate was different. In September 2024, shortly after the approval, the Redevelopment Agency’s chairman reported that Phase II was scheduled to start in spring 2025. The 2025 agreement set the schedule above.
Who is building it
The redeveloper is EB Development Urban Renewal LLC, the company behind Vermella; Russo Development has presented the project to the Redevelopment Agency. The agreement estimates the cost of Phase 2 at about $76 million.
What else is still coming at Vermella
- District Walk: of its 218 or 219 approved townhomes, the first 104 are under construction. The rest are approved but not built.
- A later phase: the agreement also lists a Phase IV. At a December 2024 Planning Board meeting, Mayor Cohen said of the remaining properties, “The plans aren’t on those properties to put residential units.”
The bottom line
- Vermella Phase II is 240 apartments that are approved but not built.
- It is in addition to the Vermella apartment building already open, and separate from the District Walk townhomes.
- It is not part of Legacy Place on Tices Lane, though the two count toward the same affordable-housing requirement.
- Under the current agreement, it is due to be finished by the end of 2028.
How we did this: This story draws on:
- the Planning Board’s agenda, minutes and certified transcript for the Aug. 28, 2024 hearing on Application #24-15
- Planning Board minutes of Oct. 30 and Nov. 13, 2024
- the township’s amended and restated financial agreement with the developer, adopted as Ordinance 25-37 in November 2025
- Redevelopment Agency and Township Council minutes from 2024 through 2026
- the township’s affordable-housing plan
- Legacy Place records reviewed for an earlier Eyes on EB story
