Kushner Co. Sues Jersey City, Claiming ‘Anti-Trump’ Bent Stalled Project

There was a time when developer Charles Kushner and his son Jared were on the best of terms with Jersey City’s mayor, Steven Fulop.

But that was before the younger Kushner became a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and the Kushners’ $900 million project in the city’s Journal Square section stalled.

On Wednesday, a partnership led by Charles Kushner filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey claiming that the Fulop administration put his two-towered residential complex in default in April out of a “political animus” toward the Kushners and Trump.

The default was issued, the suit contends, “to appease and curry favor with the overwhelmingly anti-Trump constituents of Jersey City.”

Contrary to the city’s claims, the suit maintains that Charles Kushner and his partner have worked “diligently” to perform their obligations under a redevelopment agreement with the city, and have spent $55 million on applications and project costs to date.

Fulop, however, was having none of it.

“It’s not like the Kushners have a great deal of credibility in anything they say,” the mayor said in a statement released Thursday. “Their entire lawsuit is hearsay nonsense. Bottom line — the same way they illegally use the presidency to make money is the same way here they try to use the presidency to be pretend victims. They will do anything to manipulate a situation.”

Charles and Jared Kushner bought a 2-acre site in Journal Square in 2014 in partnership with the KABR Group. The plan was to build two 56-story towers on a 10-story base near the PATH station. Jared Kushner brought in WeWork as a partner and as a tenant, with plans for shared work space, a business incubator and dormlike apartments.

The project gained approval from the city’s planning board and, with the mayor’s support, the developers won $93 million in tax breaks from the state, including $59 million for WeWork’s innovative plan.

But by 2017, Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, had left for the White House. Charles Kushner severed ties with WeWork in favor of a more conventional approach. As a result, the state reduced the tax-break package by $59 million.

The Kushner company created a political furor when the firm went to China last year to raise $150 million for the project from Chinese investors. Fulop, who was running for re-election in heavily Democratic Jersey City, immediately signaled his opposition to a hefty tax break from the city for the Kushner project.

The planning board subsequently approved Kushner’s revised plans, but Kushner still needed Fulop’s blessing for a 30-year tax break. The mayor refused.

This year, Fulop said the Kushners had failed to start construction in January and did not appear to have made any progress in financing the project. The city had no choice but to issue the default, he said.