Newark’s Central Planning Board unanimously approved a new 24-unit mixed-use building for a long vacant Upper Clinton Hill corner, a project that drew some public objection but ultimately moved forward with the outspoken support of a church that owns 20 lots across the street.
A Newark Church Backed the Building Its Neighbors Objected To, and Its Word Carried the Room
Newark’s Central Planning Board voted unanimously on August 10th to approve a new four story mixed-use building at the corner of Leslie Street and Clinton Avenue, clearing the way to finally redevelop a long vacant lot in the city’s Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood. The project will bring 24 apartments and two ground floor retail spaces to a site that has sat empty for years, part of a broader concentration of new residential approvals now taking shape along the same stretch of Clinton Avenue.
What’s Actually Being Built
Architectural plans filed with the board describe a building spanning 23,884 combined square feet on a 6,750 square foot lot, splitting ground floor commercial space from a mix of apartments above. The residential portion breaks down into 12 one bedroom units, 9 two bedroom units, and 3 three bedroom units, with individual layouts ranging from 588 to 951 square feet.
The plan includes 23 total parking spaces accessible from Leslie Street, two of them ADA accessible and four dedicated to electric vehicle charging, a notable inclusion given that the neighborhood’s zoning rules did not actually require the developer to build any parking at all. To move the project forward, the applicant, Vancho Tolomanosi, working on behalf of 760 Clinton Ave Shoho LLC, requested nine separate variances covering yard setbacks, an insufficient street facing façade, ground floor ceiling heights, and site illumination, along with a separate design waiver addressing undersized parking space dimensions.
A Church’s Support Carried Real Weight
The application drew some public objection during the review process, but the most consequential testimony came from a neighbor squarely in favor of the project. Bishop Dellroger Dunmore of First Zion Hill Baptist Church, located directly across the street at 15 Leslie Street, submitted testimony fully supporting the proposal, telling the board that his congregation shared that support because the development would have a genuinely positive impact on a neighborhood that has struggled with drugs and violent crime.
That kind of direct institutional backing from a neighboring property owner with a real, tangible stake in the block, rather than simply a nearby resident, often carries genuine weight in contested land use hearings, and the project’s unanimous approval suggests the board found the surrounding testimony, taken as a whole, convincing enough to move forward despite the objections raised elsewhere in the process.
A Development Whose Numbers Raise Their Own Questions
Public tax records add an interesting financial wrinkle to the project’s backstory. Essex County Tax Board records show 760 Clinton Ave Shoho LLC, based in Clifton, acquired the property in May 2020 for 71,344 dollars, a figure that sits well below the site’s current assessed value of 534,900 dollars. Those same records tie the LLC’s address to Ironclad Security Audit, a cybersecurity firm that lists Tolomanosi as its founder and chief executive, an unusual overlap between a cybersecurity business and a residential development project, though not one that appears to have factored into the planning board’s own review of the application.
One Corner of a Much Larger Redevelopment Push
The 760 Clinton Avenue project does not sit in isolation. The site is positioned near two other developments already approved along the same corridor, part of what is shaping up as a genuinely concentrated wave of new housing and retail investment in Upper Clinton Hill. A separate application would bring an eight story mixed-use building to 460 Clinton Avenue, delivering 38 apartments alongside retail space and 8 parking spaces, while a second approved project, filed under application CPB 24-15, consolidated two existing lots between Girard Place and Clinton Place to make way for a five story building holding 40 apartments and 24 parking spaces.
Taken together, those three approvals alone would bring more than 100 new apartment units to a relatively small stretch of Clinton Avenue, a meaningful infusion of housing for a South Ward corridor that has long included vacant and underused lots alongside its residential blocks. The applicant behind 760 Clinton Avenue has not yet published a construction timeline or groundbreaking date, leaving the exact pace of that transformation still an open question even with the project’s zoning approval now formally secured.
