North Park Place Redevelopment Hits a Legal Wall as Owner Sues Morristown

A lawsuit filed Jan. 13, 2026, challenges Morristown’s “condemnation area” designation for a key stretch by the Green, adding new uncertainty as the Town Council moves forward with a chosen redeveloper.

Bamberger’s by Morristown Green, corner of North Park Place and Speedwell Avenue (ca. 1970).

MORRISTOWN — A long-running push to remake the mostly vacant storefronts along North Park Place, beside the Morristown Green, moved into a new phase this week after property owner Dave Brown filed a lawsuit seeking to block Morristown from taking the properties through condemnation. The suit was filed Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, the same day the Morristown Town Council voted 6–0 to designate North Park Place Holdings, LLC as the project’s official redeveloper.

The North Park Place case is now both a development story and a legal test of Morristown’s redevelopment powers, with the lawsuit directly challenging the town’s “blight” findings and its authority to use eminent domain to assemble a single, unified project at one of downtown’s most visible corners.

What is North Park Place, and why does it matter?

The redevelopment area covers a cluster of parcels at the heart of downtown, immediately adjacent to the Morristown Green. Town planning documents identify the site as Block 5901, Lots 8, 9, 10, 11, 3.01, 3.02, 3.03, 3.04, 3.05, 3.06, and 3.07, a footprint the town has described as suffering from vacancies and deteriorating conditions despite surrounding reinvestment downtown.

In December 2023, the Town Council designated the area a condemnation area in need of redevelopment, a classification that can authorize the use of eminent domain under New Jersey’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law if the legal criteria are met.

What Morristown’s redevelopment plan allows

Morristown’s adopted redevelopment plan sets the governing rules for what can be built, including caps on scale and key design requirements. Among the plan’s headline limits:

• Maximum height: 5 stories, up to 60 feet (with a required stepback at the fifth story).

• Maximum residential density: 160 units.

• Maximum floor area ratio: 4.0 across the plan area.

• Circulation and streetscape: the plan calls for a publicly accessible pedestrian connection between North Park Place and the Dalton parking structure area, along with specific sidewalk and frontage standards.

• Condemnation authority: the plan explicitly states the included properties “may be acquired through condemnation” consistent with state law.

The plan also emphasizes that redevelopment is intended to be carried out as a single cohesive project, an approach that often drives municipal efforts to assemble multiple lots under one development team.

Rendered view of North Park Place via MHS Architecture

The redeveloper selection, and what it signals

On Jan. 13, the Town Council designated North Park Place Holdings, LLC as the official redeveloper for the area, according to local reporting. The same reporting describes North Park Place Holdings as a joint venture involving Cannon Hill Capital Partners and TAG Development.

Ground floor concept plan via MHS Architecture

In prior concept materials described publicly, the redeveloper’s vision has been framed as a mixed-use project combining housing, office space, and ground-floor retail on and around the currently vacant storefronts.

A redeveloper designation does not, by itself, equal final site-plan approval. Under the town’s own plan, a designated redeveloper typically still must negotiate and execute a redevelopment agreement and then pursue Planning Board approvals for site plan and other required reviews.

Rendered view of Pedestrian courtyard via MHS Architecture

What the lawsuit claims

Brown’s lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Morristown, asks a judge to void the Planning Board recommendation and the council’s redevelopment designation and to bar Morristown from using condemnation to take the properties, according to reporting that summarized the complaint.

Park Square Building (ca. 1929) at 10 North Park Place

The complaint, as described, centers on several core assertions:

• The properties are safe, maintained, and code-compliant, and the town’s “blight” determination relies on cosmetic issues rather than the “substantial evidence” the plaintiffs say state law requires.

• The redevelopment outcome was effectively predetermined, and objections raised during late-2023 hearings were not meaningfully weighed.

• Town actions allegedly interfered with a potential tenancy deal (including one tied to Deloitte), and the resulting vacancy was then used as justification for redevelopment findings.

• The process was allegedly affected by a conflict-of-interest concern because the same law firm represented both the council and the Planning Board during key stages.

The suit also seeks damages and other relief, according to the same account.

Recent view of pedestrian courtyard

How condemnation fights usually reshape the timeline

Morristown’s redevelopment plan includes a plain-language summary of New Jersey’s redevelopment process, including a key pressure point: once an area is designated as a condemnation redevelopment area, challenges to that final determination generally must be filed within a defined window, or owners can lose the ability to raise certain defenses later in a condemnation case.

Practically, lawsuits like this can shift a redevelopment from a primarily local planning process into a slower, court-driven track where uncertainty affects financing, negotiations, and scheduling, even if planning work continues in parallel.

Rendered view of Pedestrian courtyard via MHS Architecture

What happens next

In the near term, the central questions are procedural and legal:

1. Whether the court upholds Morristown’s condemnation-area designation for North Park Place.

2. How the redeveloper designation proceeds amid active litigation, including whether negotiations resume, pause, or move toward formal condemnation steps.

3. Whether Morristown can keep the project on a single-project track while the ownership dispute remains unresolved.

For residents, the stakes are unusually visible: North Park Place is not a fringe redevelopment site, but a front-door block beside the Green, where the outcome will shape downtown’s look, tax base, housing mix, and pedestrian experience for decades.

Park Place North, looking Northeast (postcard from 1907)

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