Jersey City continues to benefit from companies deciding to leave Manhattan.
Intrasphere Technologies Inc. a life sciences consulting firm, relocated to Jersey City’s Harborside Plaza 10 building this month when its lease expired in New York City at the end of June.
Princeton Information Ltd., an IT consulting firm, began shifting employees from New York City to its new headquarters at Jersey City‘s Harborside Terminal starting in January, and completed the move in May.
Since 2002, 152 businesses have relocated to Jersey City.
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The two new corporate feathers in Jersey City’s cap are part of a pattern for the city that has earned the moniker of “Wall Street West.” Since 2002, 152 businesses have relocated to Jersey City.
More coming
City spokesperson Jennifer Morrill said city officials are currently in discussions with several companies looking to relocate to Jersey City, but stated they are “not at liberty to give the names of certain companies” and “are not given their names until a lease is signed.”
Companies that have put down or expect to put down stakes in New Jersey’s second largest city over the past eight years include Arch Insurance Group, bringing 300 jobs when it relocated in 2008, and The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a company that deals in stocks and bonds, which last year agreed to relocate about 1,600 employees from Manhattan to Jersey City in 2013.
Setting down in new town
When July 1 came around, Intrasphere Technologies called Jersey City “home.” From its new base in the Harborside Plaza 10 building, the company continues to provide services to firms in the life sciences industry such as drug safety, clinical, regulatory, corporate information technology and business intelligence.
Samuel Goldman, Intrasphere co-founder and CEO, touted the move in a recent interview.
“Now that I have gotten to know Jersey City more in the past few months, I have grown fond of this town,” Goldman said. “There are many amenities here that I didn’t realize, and Intrasphere is able to be closer to our New Jersey clients.”
Goldman said the decision to relocate was not difficult. The goal was to move somewhere that did not inconvenience employees in their travels for their homes, or inconvenience their clients.
“We look out at the water and we think we can walk across the river,” Goldman said.
If you grant it, they will come
The process that the city undertakes to attract new businesses to Jersey City is coordinated through the Mayor’s Office working in conjunction with the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, the Jersey City Department of Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce and the Jersey Economic Development Corporation.
While all three agencies are involved in discussions with companies looking to relocate, the EDC does much of the heavy lifting. The EDC offers grants to businesses looking to relocate through the Business Improvement Grant program as part of the Urban Enterprise Zone Program and offers loans through the EDC subsidiary, Community Lending & Investment Corporation (CLIC).
City spokesperson Morrill said about the incentivizing, “We try and relocate them for expansion and show them that the property values are better here than elsewhere and the business incentives of the UEZ program that they may not get elsewhere.”
For example, in 2008, the EDC awarded $350,000 in relocation grants to companies who relocated to Jersey City, including financial services provider Citco Fund Services and Indian sweets and snacks maker Rajbhog Foods, both relocating from New York.
More importantly, the city works closely with the NJ Economic Development Authority on business incentives and the state’s Department of Labor on job training programs.
The NJ Economic Development Authority issues millions of dollars in grants.
In the case of Intrasphere, the state awarded Intrasphere a Business Employment Incentive Program grant worth an estimated $12.4 million over 10 years, while Princeton Information received a $656,166 grant. Both companies cited those grants as factors in their decision to relocate to Jersey City.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.