Reckitt, the company behind Lysol and Mucinex, announced earlier this month that it's putting up to $600 million into its U.S. operations, with a chunk of that landing at the ON3 campus in Nutley. That's the number every local news outlet ran with, and it's a real number. But it describes a highway-facing corporate campus, not the downtown block where Nutley residents actually eat dinner and look for parking. The project that will change how Franklin Avenue feels this year isn't the one with the press release. It's the one that's been stuck in permitting since a building collapsed in 2021.
Both stories are true. They're just not the same story, and conflating them misses what's actually different about living in Nutley over the next twelve months.
What Landed at ON3 This Month
Reckitt's investment splits across two states: a new science and innovation center in Nutley and an expansion of its largest over-the-counter manufacturing plant in Wilson, North Carolina, which was originally pegged at $145.59 million before the company doubled that figure. Nutley's share of the $600 million total hasn't been broken out publicly, so the headline number is a combined figure, not a local one.
What is local: Reckitt already moved its North American commercial headquarters into Building 100 at 100 Metro Blvd on the ON3 campus earlier this year. The new science and innovation center announced this month is where the company plans to consolidate its R&D teams, including staff focused on Lysol and other products currently based in Montvale, once the building is up. That center is expected to rise on a separate tract known as the Innovation Center site on Kingsland Street, which Prism Capital Partners, the campus's developer, said as far back as 2025 was earmarked for an unnamed international consumer products company. That company turned out to be Reckitt.
ON3 sits on the 116-acre former Hoffmann-La Roche campus that straddles Nutley and Clifton along Route 3. Roche's 2016 departure cost the surrounding municipalities an estimated $10 million a year in tax revenue. Separately, Nutley officials have spent a decade courting exactly this kind of tenant. As of February 2026, the campus held 1.55 million square feet of fully occupied office, lab, health care and education space, with tenants including Ralph Lauren's corporate offices, Quest Diagnostics' 250,000-square-foot diagnostic lab, and the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. Starbucks opened as the campus's first retail tenant in late 2024, and Chipotle, Panera and a Chase branch are set to join it. The site even runs its own 10-megawatt power plant, the first in New Jersey to integrate a central utility system into a mixed-use redevelopment.
None of that retail opens on Franklin Avenue. It opens on the ON3 campus, for the people who already work there.
The Corner That Rumor Still Hasn't Filed
A separate 11-acre Kingsland Street parcel, at 275 Kingsland St. near Cathedral Avenue, has its own smaller story. Prism originally proposed a truck depot there, which drew enough local pushback that the developer withdrew the application in 2025 in exchange for a zoning overlay that would allow a data center or other permitted uses instead. As of Mayor John V. Kelly III's state of the township address this past June, no data center application had actually been filed, despite persistent rumors to the contrary. The mayor was direct about it: any future application would be reviewed for its effect on residents before anything gets approved.
That parcel is worth tracking, but it's still a maybe. The Reckitt innovation center on the other Kingsland Street tract is the one with a name attached and a groundbreaking coming.
Why None of That Changes a Walk Down Franklin Avenue
Nutley's own government has acknowledged the gap between what happens at ON3 and what happens downtown. The township revived "Welcome to Nutley Day" in Nichols Park specifically to introduce ON3 employees and students to downtown merchants, an event township officials described as a way to demonstrate the proximity of downtown to the campus. The event is a practical bridge between two places that sit close together on the map but operate separately, a corporate campus off a state highway and a walkable downtown of independent merchants.
That's the throughline: ON3 generates jobs and tax ratables for Nutley, and both matter to the township's finances, but it doesn't generate foot traffic on Franklin Avenue by itself. The projects that do sit five blocks away.
Franklin Avenue's Five-Year Path to a Build
The former Ciccolini Brothers appliance store at 537 Franklin Ave. has been vacant since a roof collapse in June 2021. The township passed a redevelopment plan for the site and the adjacent lots in late 2022 and designated Nutley Town Center Redevelopers, a subsidiary of JMF Properties, as the developer that December. By August 2023, officials were describing the project as "alive and well," Patch reported. By June 2025, the town had a signed contract pending the redeveloper's due diligence, with terms that included a $4.5 million payment to the township. By this June, the mayor reported that the Board of Commissioners had approved a resolution to enter into a development agreement and was awaiting Planning Board sign-off, with the agreement expected to be signed "imminently."
Each of the last three town updates has reported the project a step further along than the one before it, from a redeveloper designation to a purchase contract to a development agreement, and the timeline shows how many stages a downtown redevelopment moves through before construction starts.
The plan itself, once built, adds 161 residential units, about 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space, and a public plaza for events. It also raises public parking on the site from roughly 75 spaces to about 125, plus a minimum of 5,000 square feet of new parkland. That's a net gain of 50 parking spaces on a stretch of Franklin Avenue where parking has been part of the conversation for years, tied to a project the township has explicitly framed as revitalizing the northern side of the avenue.
Diamond Springs Finishes Quietly
A few blocks over, the former Diamond Springs Pool Club site on Evergreen Avenue has moved faster. After a zoning dispute was settled in 2023, the Nutley Planning Board granted final site plan approval, and as of this June the project was described as nearing completion. It will add 82 age-restricted units for residents 55 and older, adding tax revenue without adding much daily foot traffic to the commercial strip. It's the housing project that will be finished and occupied well before Ciccolini even breaks ground.
Here's how the three projects stack up as of this September:
| Site | What's coming | Status as of this fall | Effect on daily life downtown |
|---|---|---|---|
| ON3 / Kingsland St. Innovation Center | Reckitt R&D center, part of $600M multistate investment | Announced this month, construction pending | Adds jobs and campus retail, not Franklin Ave foot traffic |
| 275 Kingsland St. | Possible data center (unfiled) | Zoned, no application filed as of June | None yet |
| Ciccolini site, 537 Franklin Ave. | 161 units, retail, restaurant, plaza, +50 parking spaces | Development agreement pending Planning Board signature | Reshapes downtown parking and the northern end of Franklin Ave |
| Diamond Springs, Evergreen Ave. | 82 age-restricted units | Nearing completion | Adds housing stock, minimal commercial impact |
What to Watch This Fall
If the Ciccolini agreement clears the Planning Board this fall, the next visible step will be construction fencing, not an open restaurant. That's still months, likely longer, from any retail actually opening on that stretch. In the meantime, Reckitt's campus retail (Chipotle, Panera, the Chase branch) will open on ON3's own timeline, serving people who already work there rather than anyone parking on Franklin Avenue. Diamond Springs will likely welcome its first residents before Ciccolini has a foundation poured.
The number worth remembering isn't $600 million. It's 50, the net new parking spaces the Franklin Avenue project promises once it finally gets built, on the corner residents have been watching sit empty since 2021.
If you're trying to make sense of what these projects actually mean for a specific block, a specific commute, or a specific house near Franklin Avenue, that's the kind of on-the-ground read The Parlay Group works through with Nutley clients every week. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
