Warehouse gets new lease on life as state-of-the-art facility.

Impressed with the opportunities that Jersey City had to offer, a big city with a small town feel, Frank Cretella, owner of Landmark Developers decided to move his real estate development and construction companies from Staten Island to Jersey City.

Frank took an abandoned warehouse and garages that once housed Kraftware, Inc., and turned these nine structures into a state-of-the-art office facility

What was once the worst building on the block, aesthetically speaking, now has the biggest impact on the neighborhood. The exterior is not the only quality that is important to the neighborhood however, it is the activity within the building. Aside from a 6,000 s/f office, the firm needed to fill 30,000 s/f of vacant space and, within one year, accomplished just that.

As part of a joint venture, the company opened Senior Spirit which occupies 15,000 s/f of space on the ground floor. Senior Spirit is an adult medical day center where local seniors gather for activities, medical care, meals, fun and companionship. As an offshoot to the development company, a real estate office has signed a lease for 3,300 s/f and a real estate mortgage company took over 1,200 s/f.

Frank Cretella designed the interior of the building and worked with a local architect, Eli Martin of Lindemon, Winckelmann, Dupree & Martin on the exterior.

The design called for a contrast of the old industrial warehouse with new, modern elements. The project consisted of nine buildings with dissimilar exterior finishes (wood, brick and cinderblock).

The new design called for cutting out the original wood and cinderblock portions and replacing these areas with Kalwall, glass and corrugated metals. An elevator shaft was done in galvanized steel to pay homage to the building's industrial past.

The contrast of old industrial and modern continues with the interior of the building. Walls of mahogany panels and bastions are replicated from the owner's home, which is an original Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home. Other materials include glass tile, concrete and raw steel.

A barrel roof, extremely prominent from the exterior of the building, houses a kitchen lounge, alligator pit and loft offices accessed from a metal spiral staircase.

Using ordinary furniture and fixtures in unordinary places, allows for high impact at affordable costs. An example of this is using kitchen tables as desks, blending rocks and pebbles into cement countertops, slate flooring and aluminum, diamond plate walls. The building is an embodiment of the area's developing future. The building is located at 675 Garfield Avenue; only minutes from Liberty State Park where the Cretella's also own and operate their waterside restaurant and catering facility, Liberty House.