Paramus is known more for the shopping malls within its borders than for high-end housing.

Many developers dressed up their high-end housing with even higher-end golf, building courses that often cost more than $7 million.

It would include 700 units of high-end housing with 140 cheaper units.

"There's now a glut of high-end housing on the market."

It's an equation that adds up to more high-end housing for the affluent 55-and-older crowd, developers throughout the county are reporting.

In part, scarcity helps drive up the value of the remaining land, forcing developers to concentrate on high-end housing.

In a sense, the conversion of 110 Livingston Street to high-end housing is more a restoration than a rebirth.

Jim Culpepper, the lead architect on the project, said the main goal with high-end senior housing is to make it "look and feel familiar."

They would rebuild from scratch the shell of the 19th-century factory that was there, only to sell it as high-end housing.

"Unless you have very high-end housing, $1 million and up, there's going to be a burden on the schools," Ms. Gray said.