Jersey City Rising

[JCMAN320]

Board: Demo bank, station; make way for learning center

Saturday, October 04, 2008
By CHARLES HACK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A defunct bank and railroad station in Jersey City will be torn down by the end of the year to make room for an early childhood center, the city planning board decided.

Acknowledging historic elements of the former Claremont Bank and Jackson Avenue Central Railroad station at Ege Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, planning board members voted unanimously last week to allow demolition to make room for the proposed Early Childhood Center No. 13.

City Planning Director Robert D. Cotter said he was "sorry for the loss" of the historic structures but the school, as part of an overall development plan for the area surrounding the King Drive Hub shopping plaza, takes priority.

"If we had our druthers we would save everything, but we don't," Cotter said.

A spokesman for the state Schools Development Authority, Larry Hanover, said his agency would create an "interpretative display" in the school with items salvaged from the bank and railroad station.

John Gomez, founder of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy and a Jersey Journal columnist, believes both buildings should have been saved - the station due to its historical significance for immigrants coming to the United States and the architecture of the neo-Greek revival bank that represents the growing economic success of the immigrants who built it.

"There is no reason why these two buildings cannot be restored and incorporated into the new school," Gomez said. "It is a missed opportunity yet again for preservation."

A report by consultants Hunter Research, commissioned by the SDA, concluded that the Jackson Avenue station, which was once the third stop from the Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal in what is now Liberty State Park, had deteriorated too much to save.

The report, however, found the bank could be restored, but said it would cost roughly $1.2 million.

The SDA has budgeted $24 million for the new two-story, 22-classroom school. Construction is slated to begin in June and be completed in 20 months.

[JCMAN320]

REVISED PLAN FOR SQUARE
Taller towers, fountain stays



Tuesday, October 07, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Jersey City Planning Board will consider tonight an amended site plan that would make the two-tower, mixed-used development proposed for the old Hotel on the Square block in Journal Square even taller.

The revised plan - which modifies a proposal the board approved in January - adds residential units to the development, while it cuts retail space; particularly the retail space that was planned to go underground.

The revised plan boosts the number of rental units from 1,503 to 1,615 and slashes retail space from 156,196 square feet to 70,385. It also bumps up the height of the north tower from 65 stories to 68 stories and the height of the south tower from 45 stories to 50, according to documents submitted to the city. The higher tower will now soar 667 feet, about 8 feet lower than the maximum height allowed, city officials said.

Tonight's Planning Board meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., 30 Montgomery St., 14th floor. Lowell Harwood, one of the development partners in the project, yesterday said plans to build a below-ground retail level were scratched due to a "problem with hard rock."
"It would be too expensive to remove," Harwood said. "It would have added a lot (of cost)." Harwood is the principal of Harwood Properties, based in Jersey City. Harwood predicted breaking ground within six months.

The previous design called for relocating and reconstructing the Journal Square fountain. According to the new plan, the fountain will remain in place and receive upgraded filtration and mechanical equipment.

This $400 million venture is being self-financed by its majority partner: the Multi-Employer Property Trust, based in Bethesda, Md., a national real estate equity fund that invests union pension funds.

During the summer, administration officials rejected the terms of a 30-year tax abatement sought by the developer. Eugene Paolino, the developer's attorney, said yesterday he plans to submit an amended tax abatement application "shortly."

[JCMAN320]

New plan OK'd for Square

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
By CHARLES HACK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Jersey City Planning Board approved a revised site plan for the Journal Square development last night that slashes its retail space by more than half and boosts the height of its two residential towers by a few stories.

The Planning Board voted unanimously at a special meeting to approve the modifications to plans it approved in January.

Not all went smoothly, as an attorney for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the neighboring transportation terminal, said the agency is concerned about the safety of its passengers.

The attorney, Harry Barr, asked the city to transfer authority for approval of the building plans to the P.A.'s chief engineer and wanted assurances that PATH would be indemnified against injury during the construction.

After a sometimes heated discussion, the developer's attorney, Eugene Paolino, agreed to show the plans to PATH engineers.

Many of the plan's approved changes are landscaping improvements to the plaza in front of entrances to the towers facing Kennedy Boulevard and to a rooftop terrace, but to keep costs to the approximately $400 million budgeted for the project.

The revised plan slashes retail space planned for below ground from 156,196 square feet to 70,385, according to the approved plans. It also cuts the number of parking spaces from 783 to 687, and places them above ground, squeezing out some more retail space.

The revised plan also boosts the number of rental units from 1,503 to 1,615. The north tower will now rise 667 feet and 68 stories. The shorter south tower will have 50 stories.

Lowell Harwood, the principal of Harwood Properties, which is involved in the project with Multi-Employer Property Trust and Becker and Becker, said demolition may start by the end of the year.

[JCMAN320]

Jersey City's Residential Boom Coincides With Market Turmoil

October 07, 2008: 03:06 PM EST

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -(Dow Jones)- After years of speculative building, public- relations campaigns and plenty of dreams, Jersey City sits on the cusp of becoming New York City's sixth borough.

The biggest residential boom in the Garden State city's history brought in thousands of residential units in recent years and another 72,000 could come by 2050. Big brands including Trump, Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) and Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (HOV) have put their stamps on the burgeoning skyline that hopes to rival New York City's.

However, the timing couldn't be worse. The boom comes as the worst housing correction in decades has exploded into a credit and financial crisis that has seen some of the financial sector's most storied names - Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers - crumble along with thousands of white-collar jobs.

"Jersey City is as much a part of the New York metropolitan area as any other municipality within a 10-mile radius of Wall Street," said Jamie LeFrak, whose family business, the LeFrak Organization, has helped guide Jersey City's transformation. "The whole [area] is going to feel negative effects in a way that's probably more significant than the rest of the country."

For now, New Jersey's second-largest city is holding its breath, waiting to see just how much the current turmoil pauses or derails the hard-won progress for the city that now boasts 240,000 or so residents and as many as 40,000 financial-sector jobs.

"Until what's going on right now kind of settles, there's going to be a little bit of a lull," said Tom Pichi, director of sales for Metro Waterfront Residential Brokerage.


From Rail To Condos

While still being portrayed in some New York-based television sitcoms as being on the wrong side of the Hudson River, Jersey City yearns to outgrow its roots and reputation as an abandoned warehouse waterfront with wild dogs and none of the city life New York's Manhattan has to offer.

For years, plentiful train tracks and shipping warehouses bordering the Hudson River fed Jersey City's economy. However, after World War II, the railroads consolidated, manufacturing businesses fled to Manhattan, and the area "just languished," Pichi said. "There was nothing here." Wild dogs prowled the streets and it wasn't, as several people recalled, the type of place you wanted to be caught alone at night.

In the mid-1980s, the LeFrak Organization, considered one of the nation's largest private landlords, snapped up hundreds of acres stretching from Jersey City to Hoboken. The company first built five residential towers (named after presidents) that took time to fill, as well as the Newport Centre Mall, developed with the Simon family behind the Simon Property Group (SPG).

"That's when Jersey City started to really just begin to lose its industrial nature and become a residential and white-collar commercial location," LeFrak said.

Progress took a breather in the 1990s as the nation battled a recession. Then came the tech boom, which fueled the rise in Manhattan's office prices, pushing office users seeking cheaper rents across the river. That was one of the reasons why, in the late 1990s, the LeFraks took a risk and built more than two million square feet of speculative office space. It filled quickly with tenants including Cigna Corp. (CI) and what is now JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM).

Lord, Abbett & Co., an independent privately held investment management firm, grabbed headlines when, in 2000, it moved its headquarters (instead of just back-office operations) from the Big Apple to Jersey City's Hudson Street. The company, which sought room to expand, relocated with hundreds of employees.

"That put us on the map," said Dan Frohwirth, director of real estate and marketing for the Jersey City Economic Development Corp.

Light rail, meanwhile, arrived the same year, connecting Bayonne to Exchange Place and then Pavonia Newport. The Hoboken train station followed in September of 2002, Frohwirth said. This came in handy after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which forced companies - and scores of commuters - out of lower Manhattan and, in many cases, into and through Jersey City.

"Suddenly people knew what Jersey City was," Frohwirth said. "People who lived and worked in New York realized: 'I could live in Jersey City'."

That led to a condo development frenzy, fed by inexpensive capital to first- time developers and Wall Street bonuses, coinciding with the nation's residential real estate boom - and bust.


The Residential Boom

At first, the units sold quickly (LeFrak's two condo projects had waiting lists) but, as the housing crisis drags into another quarter, things are changing: Nationwide unemployment rosters continue to swell, some buyers are unable to sell existing homes, while others are finding mortgages harder to obtain. Until now, the downturn had largely bypassed the Northeast, though the area is now softening.

"It's not booming like it did," said Paul Silverman, who is working with his brother, Eric, to transform a former hospital into luxury condominiums, retail and commercial space. "People are scared [and asking:] 'Will I have my job a year from now? Should I commit to buying something?'"

While several projects are said to be on hold, locals don't seem overly concerned. "It's not the way it was a year ago," said Mayor Jerramiah Healy. " We're still doing OK."

The first phase of 323-unit Gull's Cove is 70% sold. Construction of Trump Plaza's 444 units was recently completed, and the project is 85% sold, according to developer Dean Geibel. Both projects have seen cancellation rate of less than 5%, though some needed more time for financing.

"Very few people have backed out [of deals] because prices in Jersey City have remained relatively stable," he said. "They don't want to walk away from good money."

Geibel plans a second Trump tower, but he is "waiting like everybody else for this financial hurricane to blow over." He expects to break ground in several months.

Toll Brothers' 230-unit 700 Grove, with two-bedroom units priced as high as $ 725,000, has closed on 85% of its units, said Ben Jogodnik, senior vice president for Toll's City Living division in Hoboken and Jersey City.

The Pennsylvania-based builder continues with its 950-unit Provost Square, though construction won't start for at least a year

"If things take a minute to repause, it's certainly not going to hurt," Jogodnik said. "The markets will ebb and flow, but the long-term prospects for Jersey City are outstanding."

That's good news for New Jersey-based Hovnanian Enterprises. Its first high- rise tower, the 44-story, 420-unit 77 Hudson, should see its first occupants next spring.

-By Dawn Wotapka, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5248; dawn.wotapka@dowjones.com

[grovepath]

End Nears for Unloved Housing

The New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
October 10, 2008

MONTGOMERY GARDENS, a six-tower public housing project built 58 years ago next to what was then the Jersey City Medical Center, has a date with demise.

Like so many “vertical concentrations of poverty,” as the old projects have been termed by the federal housing agency that built them, the project has been deemed ready for wrecking (within the next two years) and re-creation (four developers have submitted proposals).

With its old neighbor, the medical center, now morphing into a residential complex called the Beacon, the character of the area has already undergone a change. Two of the eight tall Art Deco buildings that once housed the hospital have been fully restored and are open as condominiums; the other six will be either condos or high-caliber rentals.

Meanwhile, Montgomery Gardens has survived all these years in a state of decay and distress.

“Pssst — don’t go near Montgomery Gardens without your bulletproof vest,” a blogger calling himself JC Man wrote last month in an online real-estate forum addressing safety concerns in the Beacon’s neighborhood.

Others have posted “crime maps” that show clusters of violent incidents in which the police intervened on surrounding streets. A drive down Cornelison Avenue, which runs along one side of the project, demonstrates why it has gained notoriety as a marketplace for prostitutes.

“Crime is always the top complaint of the residents,” said Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy in a recent telephone interview. He noted that the same had been true in the vicinity of two other big public housing projects before one was taken down about 10 years ago and another was partially demolished more recently.

Earlier this year, the Jersey City housing authority stopped renewing leases at the 549-unit Montgomery Street complex. Several weeks ago, a notice seeking demolition experts was sent out.

Right now, said Maria Maio, the housing authority director, various proposals for redeveloping the six-acre site are being reviewed. “With the support and participation of residents” of the project, Ms. Maio said, “a transformation will take place.” (Residents have first priority as occupants of the planned new mixed-income units, as long as they still meet income qualifications.)

Certainly, Jersey City as a whole is undergoing transformation. In each of the last four years, more construction permits for residential units were issued here than in any other community in the state, housing officials say. Thousands of Manhattan-style apartments have been created in the downtown area, attracting large numbers of young professionals; many decamped from Manhattan to take advantage of New Jersey prices.

Developers have continued to extend the limits of downtown, moving inland with their projects, surrounding new light rail and PATH train stops with shiny new commuter havens.

It was three years ago that the forces of change reached all the way into the area west of the Holland Tunnel, and the Manhattan-based developer MetroVest Equities began opening the first 300 condos at the Beacon.

Now, MetroVest has put itself forward as a possible redeveloper for the Montgomery Gardens site. “We feel we have a real vested interest in the area,” said MetroVest’s president, George Filopoulos (who set up a Christmas present giveaway for local schoolchildren at the Beacon last year, donning an elf hat while Mayor Healy played Santa Claus).

Mr. Filopoulos said property values in the area had already been raised by his company’s commitment to the Beacon — where a total of 1,200 residential units are planned, in addition to restaurant and retail space to create a “city within a city.” That helps make it a “real opportunity” to rebuild the six acres next door, he added.

According to Ms. Maio, three other companies have also made proposals for the Montgomery Gardens site, with different approaches involving a mix of lower-priced and market-rate housing and retailing.

Those applicants are Community Builders, a 40-year-old Boston-based firm, which describes itself as the largest nonprofit housing developer in the country; Community Investment Strategies of Bordentown, which has completed a number of age-restricted and affordable housing projects in New Jersey; and the Michaels Development Company of Marlton, a builder of both mixed-income and lower-cost housing. None of the three returned calls seeking comment.

Ms. Maio said that all four proposals were being studied now, and that she hoped a decision could be made by the end of the year.

Mr. Healy said in a separate interview that he was pleased to hear a deadline had been set, and was interested to learn that MetroVest was in the running.

Mr. Filopoulos said — and the mayor later agreed — that next to demolishing and replacing the Montgomery Gardens housing, the top priority for the entire neighborhood was bringing in a large grocery store.

MetroVest’s proposal calls for a “superduper supermarket,” Mr. Filopoulos said — as large as possible, with plenty of parking so that all of Jersey City could potentially be served.

As Mr. Healy put it: “We have a dearth of supermarkets. We have downtown, one in the east end of our city, but nothing in Journal Square,” and nothing near the site of the Beacon.

Montgomery Gardens is accessible to the New Jersey Turnpike and is also near the Grove Street PATH station, where the number of residents has increased sharply with the recent addition of thousands of new residential units, he noted.

“This area is going to have a great future,” he predicted, “because the truth is, it has got a great location in a lot of ways.”

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/realestate/

[wander118]

Thats great news about the montgomery gardens! There's some work being done on cornelson back behind the medical center, as well. I think it might be the city's emergency response center..

[JCMAN320]

'BOLD' NEW SQUARE

Thursday, October 16, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy yesterday unveiled an ambitious "vision" for the Journal Square - a plan that one city official calls a Marshall Plan for the long-neglected center of the city.

Developed by planner Anton C. Nelessen and architect Dean Marchetto - with some input from residents and major property owners - the plan covers 244 acres, the heart of which is the transit hub at the Journal Square Transportation Center.

Presented to a crowd of movers and shakers at the Hudson County Community College's Culinary Arts Center, the plan is intended to be more pedestrian-friendly, with more walkable, has more open space and fewer cars. Even residential blocks in the yesterday's PowerPoint presentation are given islands of greenery.

"It's bold, it is visionary," Healy said about the plan. "And it is not only going to be a great thing for our city, our county, in our state. I believe it is going to be a model for the country to follow."

The plan calls for between 10,000 and 15,000 new housing units, nine acres of parks, parking lot "interceptors" at the edges of the district, and light rail connecting Journal Square to the Downtown waterfront.

Distinguishing between pure "vision" and portions of the plan that are backed by money, a timetable and a builder behind it was tricky yesterday since the Nelessen's PowerPoint presentation included both.

Clearly the most concrete element of the plan is a two-tower, mixed development slated for the old Hotel on the Square block. Both Healy and Lowell Harwood, one the developers, said they expect to break ground "within six months."

This $400 million project includes 1,600 residential units and 70,000 square feet of retail in two towers, one 68 stories, the other 50. On the other hand, the PowerPoint show included a glittering new Port Authority of New York and New Jersey building on the Square and a new PATH entrance with sunlight beaming through from a reflecting pool at street level.

Asked if the agency has agreed to these improvements, Port Authority Deputy Director Susan Bass Levin, who attended yesterday's presentation, said, "No, we haven't."

"That was the first time anybody saw it, it was part of the visioning process," Bass Levin added. "What we are doing now is a $3.3 billion PATH modernization system. . What you're seeing here is a very, very first stage and it will take a while for this get to reality, but this is how you have to start."

Healy said the plan could take five, 10, even 15 years to complete and he couldn't yesterday put a price tag on how much it would cost the public.

The "vision" study, which gets a public hearing on Oct. 23, has so far cost $400,000. "Smart growth" grants from the Department of Community Affairs covered $150,000 and Urban Enterprise Zone funds $250,000, city officials said.

[JCMAN320]

I just realized in that in NYTime article it said a "blogger JC Man", lol someone is using my name on another forum, I never said that at all.

Jersey City celebrates completion of "affordable" Tubman homes

by Tom Shortell/The Jersey Journal
Thursday October 23, 2008, 2:10 PM

Federal, state and city officials opened eight new affordable housing units on Martin Luther King Drive with a ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning. The project is the first of Jersey City's affordable housing units born from the "CHOICE" program to be completed.

The Harriet Tubman Homes are townhouse units using energy efficient methods and sub-prime mortgages approved by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency to provide inexpensive housing to carefully chosen families, according to officials.

The 1,600-square feet townhouses are mixed housing, which range from around $60,000 to $259,900. The two homes going for $259,900 are the only two still on the market, according to a press release.

More than 300 people inquired about the homes, and of the 125 applicants, four were approved for sub-prime mortgages, said Bob Antonicello, the executive director of Jersey City's Redevelopment Agency. "These are families with great credit, families that (saved)," he said. "These families earned the right to own a home."

[Fountainrunner]

Hi,

I was looking at a property next to Garfield Avenue Lightrail and one of the neighbors was telling me a luxury development is in the works for the huge vacant lot adjacent to it. Does anyone have any word on this development? Thanks!

[JCMAN320]

I have heard some rumblings about it as well. The Pittsburgh Paint Co. toxified those sites south of the LRT abd are cleaning them up. North of that bounded by Garfield, Communipaw, LRT and Woodward St, will be the creation of the largest city park with ballfields, passive park space, and kids areas. Thats all I know for now.

[wander118]

check this out for some info:
http://www.thejcra.org/index.php?p=p...details&pid=77

seems like its close to the lightrail on garfield..if that's the location you're talking about.

[Fountainrunner]

check this out for some info:
http://www.thejcra.org/index.php?p=p...details&pid=77

seems like its close to the lightrail on garfield..if that's the location you're talking about.

Yes, 900 Garfield Avenue! The property I'm looking at is across the street from it facing the backyard. I wonder if this development will increase the value of the surrounding area. The development is approved but what are the chances it'll actually be built? To me, it's all just talk until I start to see some construction underway. I'd love to purchase the home and move in before the area becomes a 'hot spot'. Any thoughts?

[NYC4Life]

NY Post

UP AGAINST THE WALL

JERSEY CITY TAKES STOCK


By ADAM BONISLAWSKI

Posted: 12:02 am
October 30, 2008


Ankur Randev and his wife, Rachna, live at Trump Plaza Jersey City.


James Keating doesn't work on Wall Street. But living in Jersey City, he's had a front-row seat to the financial sector's recent traumas.

Keating, a resident of the Beacon condo development, takes his building's free shuttle to the PATH train each morning. The day of the Lehman Brothers collapse, he sat across from two of his fellow residents - one an employee at Lehman and the other an employee at Merrill Lynch (which sold itself to Bank of America just a few days later). They were, of course, discussing what fates awaited them at the office.

"One of them was saying to the other that he wondered if he should have brought a cardboard box with him to collect his things," recalls Keating, vice president of marketing at Shopwiki.com.

Such is life these days on "Wall Street West," as Jersey City is often called, given the area's close ties to Manhattan's investment world. Home to some 24,000 finance jobs and to thousands more residents who work in the industry across the river in Manhattan, Jersey City's fortunes are very much entwined with those of Wall Street.

Which, given the markets' current woes, probably isn't the most reassuring fact in the world. Especially if you're trying to sell Jersey City real estate.
"What's going on right now is scary," says Dean Geibel, managing partner of Metro Homes, the development company that built the Trump Plaza Jersey City condo tower. "It has a lot of people sitting on the sidelines. Sales haven't come to a halt, but it's slower because people are being cautious."

The 440-unit building (plans for a second 417-unit tower are on hold) has sold 375 apartments since going to market at the end of 2006. With the market slowing, however, the building is offering concessions like six months of free parking, although Geibel says he has yet to resort to price cuts (currently, one-bedrooms start at $495,000, two-bedrooms at $799,000 and three-bedrooms at $899,000).

Sales are similarly slow at developer K. Hovnanian's 77 Hudson, which, with prices averaging around $850 per square foot, is one of Jersey City's priciest buildings. On sale since July 2007, apartments in the 420-unit building are only 30 percent sold.

Tom Graham, the building's senior community director, says that K. Hovnanian is covering transfer taxes and other closing costs in an effort to lure buyers to the building. Nevertheless, Graham admits, sales office traffic is down 15 to 20 percent since September.


Ankur Randev and his wife, Rachna, departed Midtown for Trump Plaza Jersey City.

Curiously, though, Graham notes that the week Congress began discussion of the bailout plan, sales at 77 Hudson were relatively strong, with five units purchased - all by international buyers. Which raises the question - just how essential are Wall Street workers to Jersey City's housing market?

"When we first started marketing, our target market was the Wall Street buyer," Graham says. "But it turns out that's not who's been buying."

Then again, with close to 300 units still unsold, it's going to take more than foreign buyers, who have also been hit hard by the world's falling markets.

Still, Jamie LeFrak, managing director of the LeFrak Organization, similarly suggests that Jersey City's Wall Street ties have been overblown.

"The whole region is in the same boat together. Brooklyn is tied to the financial sector. Queens is tied to the financial sector. You could make the same exact statement about Bergen County, Westchester County, Nassau County," says LeFrak, whose Jersey City projects consist of nearly 5,000 residential units and will soon include the new 350-unit Aquablu rental building (studios start at $2,079, one-bedrooms at $2,257, two-bedrooms at $2,808 and three-bedrooms at $3,885).

Then again, Keating estimates that more than a third of his neighbors at the Beacon work in finance.

"You can definitely see the fear," he says. "People are going around asking each other, 'Are you going to be all right?' "

And Beacon developer George Filopoulos has changed his plans to build an adjacent 103-unit condo building, opting instead for 26 3,000- to 6,000-square-foot live/work lofts (with prices starting around $900,000) - a hedge against reduced demand.

"I wanted to offer something different from what's on the market," Filopoulos says. "We have to admit that there may be less buyers to go around than there were in 2005."

The Beacon's first building had nearly sold out by early 2008, with apartments in the 315-unit building going for under $500 per square foot.

Fifty of those sales fell through, however, when the buyers were unable to secure financing. Since those 50 units returned to the market this September, five of them have sold.

But there are signs of hope in Jersey City. Near the Grove Street PATH station is Ivy House, a boutique condo building from Fields Development Group and TreeTop Development, which has sold 15 of its 18 units since going on sale at the beginning of July. With prices around $500 per square foot, the units are aimed at entry-level buyers, a demographic, says Fields principal James Caulfield, that's been under-served by new construction.

Retail planning director Sean Corolan and his wife, Magdalena, bought a two-bedroom in the building. Although nervous about the effects of the downturn, he's convinced that the area's relatively low prices will help protect his investment.

"We definitely talked about it: 'Is this a good time to buy with everything that's going on?' " he says. "But the thing I always come back to is that I see such a big discount in price per square foot. You can't even get close to this on price in Brooklyn."

And, of course, the proximity to Manhattan (the Financial District is just a five-minute PATH ride away), which helped tie Jersey City to Wall Street in the first place, won't be going away - regardless of what the market does.

"I'm still very confident that this area is going to appreciate," says hospitality industry executive Ankur Randev, who, with his wife Rachna, moved from Midtown to Trump Plaza Jersey City in June.

"At the end of the day, you're five minutes from lower Manhattan, but you have a $500-per-square-foot spread in price."

And then there are those who don't want anything to do with living in New York, anyway.

Manhattan nightclub owner Rocco Ancarola (of Pink Elephant fame) moved from NoLita to a three-bedroom rental by the Grove Street PATH stop three years ago. Since then, he's gotten hooked on his neighborhood's peace and quiet.

"I wake up in the morning in a Zen-like atmosphere," he says. "I can't wait to get back to New Jersey after my work in the city."

And, by the way, if you're a developer worried about luring buyers from across the river in this current climate, well, listen up - Ancarola has some good news.

"You put my name and picture in the paper, people will be flocking to Jersey City," he jokes.

So there's that, at least.


Market watch

TRUMP PLAZA JERSEY CITY
The 440-unit tower (one-bedrooms start at $495,000) has sold 375 condos, with units averaging around $700 per square foot. Plans for a second building are on hold.

77 HUDSON
The 420-unit building, with condos averaging around $850 per square foot, is 30 percent sold. One buyer bought two penthouse units, a combined 4,188 square feet, for $6 million last year.

THE BEACON
Fifty units in the 315-unit building, with condos selling for less than $500 per square foot, returned to the market this September. Five have sold. In early 2007, a two-story penthouse sold for $2.3 million.

IVY HOUSE
This 18-unit boutique building, with prices around $500 per square foot, has sold 15 condos since hitting the market in July.


Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

[JCMAN320]

Looking for a good investment? Try Hudson County!

by Charles Hack Thursday October 30, 2008, 9:15 PM

Investors worried about the value of their stocks in these turbulent financial times could do worse than adding Hudson County to their portfolio.

Standard & Poor's bumped up the county's rating a notch last week from A+ to AA- based on such factors as the county's track record at repaying loans, good reserves, low debt burden, and growing local economy and tax base, officials said.

"This is reaffirmation that we are doing things right and shows we are being appreciated by the financial industry," said County Executive Tom DeGise. "On the practical side it helps us with our interest rates."

The S&P report also notes a growing tax base, in large part to the development of the Hudson River waterfront, with ratables in the county more than doubling since 2001 to a current total value of $50.3 billion.

But the report adds, an above average unemployment rate in the county -- 5.5 percent -- compared to the state and the rest of the country, prevents the county from achieving a higher rating.

[JCMAN320]

High-price studies to help select site for JCIA and DPW

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
By PAUL KOEPP
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

It may cost Jersey City nearly $700,000 in settlement funds from the chromium cleanup on the city's West Side just to decide where to relocate the city's Incinerator Authority and Department of Public Works.

Step one will be deciding where to build the new combined facility as the departments leave their current contaminated digs on Route 440. The JCIA and DPW will need about 10 acres and access to major roads.

With the city's original plan to move them up the street to the PJP landfill site under the Pulaski Skyway held up by litigation with that site's owner - and by the opposition of Councilwoman Mary Spinello, who says it would create too much traffic and pollution in her ward - attention has turned to three other sites.

The Jersey City City Council will vote tomorrow on whether to pay $346,000 for Urban Architects, of Newark, to do architectural and engineering studies of the PJP property and an industrial tract on East Linden Avenue.

The latter includes two existing buildings totaling 200,000 square feet that could be refurbished to house the departments.

Stantec Consulting Services, of Rochelle Park, could receive $100,000 to do traffic studies of those two sites.

Also up for consideration will be a $200,000 contract for Malcolm Pirnie Inc., of Fair Lawn, to do environmental investigations at the PJP and East Linden Avenue sites, as well as other possible locations on Linden Avenue and Commercial Street.

And T&M Associates, of Middletown, could get $46,000 to study the landscaping that would be required for a proposed park on the western side of the PJP site, along the Hackensack River.

All of these contracts would come out of a $13 million relocation fund established by Honeywell International as part of the company's development plans on the West Side, officials said.

City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis said the City Council would have to go into executive session at one of its upcoming meetings to decide which site it wants to pursue.