In the wake of the destruction in downtown Manhattan, thousands of employees and residents are still wondering where to hang their hats. In the Gateway Plaza section of Battery Park City alone there were more than 4,000 residents temporally displaced, and of those, more than 1,000 still can’t get into their homes.
Combine this with the more than 400 firms having to relocate and the end result is that the area’s real estate market is in flux. On the business side, several large firms have expressed interest in moving to Jersey City, including Lehman Brothers, who leased 150,000 sq. feet at 70 Hudson St., and Charles Schwab, who was negotiating for 500,000 square feet in Jersey City. But will this interest in business space translate into residential interest?
For the past decade, the residential market on New Jersey’s Gold Coast has blossomed at a dizzying pace. Over the past five years, a total of 6,479 rental units and 1,590 condominiums have been developed in the waterfront towns of Jersey City, Hoboken, Edgewater, Fort Lee and West New York. And according to real estate professionals about 2,000 newly constructed units are being absorbed annually.
Michael Barry, a principal at the Applied Companies in Hoboken, has seen a marked increase in New Yorkers and especially Battery Park City residents that have moved to Hoboken. In the mile-square city the Applied Companies have just opened a new 526-unit building on the river. “We have seen a real increase in New York City traffic with a large number of people coming from Battery Park City,” said Barry Friday. “Approximately one third of our new building a 333 River Street are people who relocated from New York and at least one third of those are from Battery Park City. Since September 11 we have had a steady steam of calls from people looking to relocate.”
Margaret and Dan Olson and their 4-year-old daughter are one displaced family that has moved to the Newport section of Jersey City permanently. The couple had lived in Manhattan for the past eight years.
“We could have moved back downtown, but there was no way we were going to,” said Dan. “The flood lights at Ground Zero shine in our old window 24 hours a day. You just can’t get away from those types of reminders. They’re everywhere. I think you will see a lot of people do what we have done.”
But not everyone agrees that there will be a substantial impact due to migration on the area’s residential real estate market.
“We’ve been reading about it in the press and have heard people talk it, about but we haven’t seen it,” said Dan Voehringer, a broker for Re/Max reality of Hoboken and Jersey City. “I see there being a lot of uncertainty in the market right now. Many of these companies have not made a final decision about their company’s permanent location, so that is obviously going to delay people decisions about where they want to move, if they want to move away at all. But even without a huge migration I see the sales market being amazingly resilient and while there might be a lull right now I think it will pick up by spring.”
One of those people waiting it out is Molly Lindeman, 39, a computer consultant and Hoboken sublettor who worked in downtown Manhattan and is currently in a temporary office in uptown Manhattan. “I don’t know where I’ll end up,” she said Tuesday. “I’m subletting in Hoboken for now, but my company may move to Connecticut. I would be crazy to even think about buying anything right now.”
In Hoboken, Realtor Nancy Wykstra of Prudential Properties on the Hudson said that regardless of any other factors, the market has slowed. “The market is definitely sluggish and prices are down,” said Wykstra. “Condo owners thought they could rent out their units and were sitting on a gold mine, but now a lot of those high-end condos are sitting vacant because there is nobody left to rent them. It’s a case of there being much more supply than demand.”
Rich Cohen, the controller for Manhattan Builders, a Jersey City developer and real estate broker, said Thursday that a disaster can only have a negative effect on New Jersey’s real estate market. “Sales have really quieted down,” he said. “We are so closer to Manhattan that whatever happens over there is going to affect the market here. A bulk of the residents that [move into Jersey City] work in Manhattan and this has put a damper on everything.”
Even those who are entering the market are doing so with a sense of trepidation. Robert Eubanks and his wife Stephanie just bought their first house in Hoboken but are questioning their decision now.
“We bought our house before September 11, but now were wondering if we did the right time,” said Stephanie.
“We’ve had several conversations about whether or not we did the right thing and if we want to make a long term commitment to the area.”
What all of the real estate professionals did agree on was that it’s still too early to have any tangible numbers to refute or support a post-September 11 exodus from Manhattan to New Jersey. Not until the filing of 2002 income taxes, or 2002 Census population estimates will the dynamic of post-attack be completely known.