Newport dream becoming reality.

It's been 14 years since Samuel LeFrak assembled the 600 acres in New Jersey that comprise his $10 billion master-planned community of Newport. In that time, LeFrak has turned much of the former Hudson River-side industrial land in Jersey City into a beautiful and lively community of apartments, offices, retail, transportation and services, Nowadays, this prototype experimental city of the 21st Century offers a total living environment.

Situated on the west bank of the Hudson River, the buildings have glorious views of the Manhattan skyline, particularly at sunset when the skyscrapers glow with the reflected light.

The area had been nearly abandoned when LeFrak east his eyes on the far shore from those very same skyscrapers in Manhattan. That was when LeFrak was the builder of Gateway, the first residential complex at Battery Park City.

"I realized that the west bank of the Hudson was the most important in the Downtown area," he recalled recently.

As a sailor, an active member of the Explorer's Club and a strong supporter of underwater exploration - including the discovery of the sunken Titanic - LeFrak was convinced something good should come of that land.

Indeed, even its earliest visitors found it memorable: explorer Henry Hudson anchored his ship The Half Moon there when he discovered the river and claimed the land for Holland, while General George Washington passed through a few times by boat, traveling first on Revolutionary War business, and then to be sworn in Downtown as the nation's first president.

The early fort and trading colony of Pavonia gave way to railyards and then abandonment before LeFrak spotted it from Battery Park City.

"The view from there to Lower Manhattan is the most magnificent view," LeFrak noted.

After negotiating with more than 80 landowners - including bankrupt railroads he soon accumulated 600 acres, 200 of which go to the pierhead line and include the riparian rights to develop the shoreline, and 400 of which are upland and buildable. The site runs from Hoboken southward, roughly from Eighteenth Street to Sixth Street at Jersey City's shoreline, and inland to Luis Munoz Marin Boulevard, formerly known as Henderson Street.

Now, LeFrak's community of Newport is rising on the ashes of long-forgotten peace pipes and locomotives, and the residents of Battery Park's Gateway have Newport's variegated skyline as part of their own view.

While Gateway was a private/public project, Newport is all LeFrak's. The $10 billion project is for the most part privately financed and now, about halfway complete, is proof that one man can make a difference.

"This gave me an opportunity to be a visionary, to build to the 21st Century - past the Millennium - and give the people a new town at a price they can afford to pay, and give them what they want," LeFrak said.

LeFrak carefully crafted a master plan that, when completed, will incorporate a campus environment with a mix of 9,000 apartments, commercial office space, a 1,200-room hotel and conference center, restaurants, an expansive mali, and of course, several marinas, including one that hosts 20 live-aboard owners as well as small crafts and huge yachts, like LeFrak's own 100-footer, the Jonathan III.

It ain't Disney World, but it has fun rides in the form of elevators, ferries, a helicopter pad, $1 PATH trains and soon-to-come light rail.

If you are lucky enough to own a boat, you have instant transportation from the sheltered marinas - now adding 200 slips to the current 187 - to any shore of the world. And if you prefer your rides on an exercycle, well, there are plenty of those in the community's health club.

With the Pavonia/Newport PATH train stop in the middle of everything, Newporters are quickly connected to either the World Trade Center or Midtown.

LeFrak says he spent over $24 million refurbishing the station, including its beautiful mosaics and its 24-car platform that operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

The weekly use previously was 695 people - today it's more than 8,500 daily.

"A few minutes away you are in Wall Street, and now, with communications and high technology and satellites, this is the answer to the maiden's prayer," LeFrak said.

On site, fiber optic and communications services are provided by the internal telephone system, Newport Telecommunications, while Liberty Cable, New Jersey Bell, MCI, Teleport of New York and MPS Network are additional providers.

A member of the Regional Plan Association, LeFrak supports an overview of the tri-state area, as much as any one single place.

"I had to convince people we were part of Manhattan and we had to eradicate the Hudson River," LeFrak laughed about his Newport marketing efforts, which have been rewarded all over the site.

Certainly, the International Business Center is proof that a thriving business environment can be created when transportation and communications are easy. Even electrical power comes from four different sources to provide multi-redundant back-up.

To underscore the site's value, in early August, Trizee Hahn contracted to purchase New Jersey's tallest office tower, the most prominent and largest of Newport's office buildings - Newport Tower a/k/a Newport Office Center II - with one million square feet in 36-stories, for about $159 million.

With the marina on one side and the PATH station on the other, Newport Office Center I, a breath-takingly dreamy office structure, is fully leased to Recruit USA, a Tokyo-based computer services company. With 455,000 square feet, the lease represents the largest by a Japanese firm in the United States.

LeFrak has also hired Cushman & Wakefield to market a third office site on Washington Boulevard, Newport Office Center Ill, where the future New Jersey light rail is destined to stop. The current design for a 17-story tower will hold 758,000 square feet or can be individually fashioned for its tenant.

LeFrak has ensured that Newport qualified as an Enterprise Zone. That means taxes and costs are lower, both for the office tenants and for any shoppers, who have no sales tax to surprise them at check-out for food or clothing. Other merchandise is taxed at a rate of only 3 percent.

The large commercial tenant Standard & Peers was actively wooed by the State of New Jersey and at one point even announced they had cut a deal for this Newport Office Center III - still a neat, grassy lot - before eventually moving to 55 Water Street when New York City 'dangled a bigger plum." Currently, industry sources report that Reuters is seriously interested in the land and building, as are other larger tenants.

And Marriott, they add, is close to inking a deal for one of the Newport hotel sites as a Courtyard.

The Holland Tunnel actually emerges just west of Newport, where the official entrance is the first right turn into what appears to be an insignificant industrial street. But follow Eighteenth Street around as it makes its 180 degree sweeping turn towards the Hudson and turns into Newport's main street, Washington Boulevard, and the fully rented Presidential Plaza apartment towers come into view.

To the right is a huge big box originally constructed for K-Mart that ended up subleasing to Bradlee's. That 138,000 square-foot space has now be relet to Food Market International Corp., which is installing an international food market that will serve New Jersey's multi-national communities, with many aisles devoted to each cuisine.

Its centerpiece will be eight fish tanks holding 12,000 gallons of water and more than 20 varieties of live fish. Additionally, a 1,500 square-foot bean curd processing room will create fresh tofu as shoppers look on.

Closer to the towers is land destined for more retail development, and alongside, more commercial towers and one of the hotel sites.

Across the street lies more of the Presidential Plaza complex, while the James Monroe condominiums, with about 446 units, are 92 percent sold and represent the only residential building to offer condo units.

Behind them to the east at the shoreline, the $250 million Towers of America and its 1,600 rental apartments are beginning to rise, with the first building, the Riverside, now nearing completion. Construction is underway on the Atlantic and the adjoining garage.

Eventually, they will be joined in the gated community by the Southampton and the East Hampton, and a winding promenade will carry walkers to the pier-sited tennis courts, where high fences keep lobs on the courts and out of the river.

"We are taking them off Main Street down to the river," explained LeFrak. "Let then enjoy the river with the esplanade."

LeFrak has already created a day care center, a physical fitness facility with several pools, including one that has a retractable roof, and of course, the Newport Centre Mall, which is Hudson County's only enclosed, regional shopping facility, run by Melvin Simon. There, area shoppers have their choice of JC Penney, Sears, Stern's and Filene's, along with an 11-screen Cineplex Odeon, and over 140 other businesses and the food court.

"Simon runs our mall, which is one of the most successful in America, with $550 in sales a foot," LeFrak noted. Average mali sales in America are about $250 a foot. Many New York City residents make the trek for the tax-free and low-tax purchases.

The benefits of living in Newport are attracting both singles, couples and young families. With prices beginning at about $950 for a Manhattan skyline view from the lowest Riverside floor, and no broker fees, it's easy to see how the on-site sales staff is renting halls dozen or more each weekend, many to those walking the half-block from the PATH station. One bedrooms in the 33-story building rent for $1,300; two bedrooms with two full baths start at $1,875, while the three-bedroom apartments start at $2,770. Currently about half the Riverside's units have been rented. The average age of the renters is 31, with an average income of $72,000.

"We're giving people what they want, at a price they afford to pay," LeFrak said, using $22 a foot as the current tab. "We are building larger rooms and higher ceilings and making it into a destination and not a pit stop."

In the 10th Street corridor, LeFrak is starting site work for a New Jersey "charter" school, i.e. an elementary and middle school officially sanctioned by the state. Near there, low-rise patio garden apartments are on the drawing board.

"It's like wine and it's maturing," explained LeFrak of Newport. "It's the creation of a new city."