Residential buildings aren’t the only types of developments sprouting around Hudson County. A fair number of office buildings, businesses, and stores are rising to service and employ the new residents.
In the near future, at least three hotels are expected in three different towns, with more on the way.
Here is a roundup of commercial development in progress, town by town.
Hoboken
“The Hudson County waterfront has the lowest vacancy rate of any market in the state right now,” said Jeffrey Schotz, executive vice president of developers SJP Properties. “It’s very active with deals.” SJP completed Waterfront Corporate Center III in 2014. A 15-story office tower on the south waterfront, it is the third and final building in the complex, bringing the total to 1.5 million square feet of office space. The first two buildings are fully leased and the new one is 70 percent rented, with major tenants including Jet.com, an e-commerce startup that is looking to take on Amazon, and Pearson Education, which is bringing their headquarters and 900 jobs to Hoboken.
Additional high profile businesses are soon to be announced.
The biggest project in the works is the Hoboken Terminal and Rail Yard Redevelopment Plan. The mixed-use development is intended to combine extensive office, retail and residential space near the PATH station.
“The Rail Yard project is going to be the most game-changing thing to happen to Hoboken’s commercial market ever,” said Greg Dell’Aquila, past president of the chamber of commerce and the Rotary Club. “It’s going to be the largest block of commercial office space in the city.”
A massive project that involves reinventing the entire south edge of Hoboken with parks, transit, and historic buildings, it is still in development.
At the north end of town, the Rockefeller Group has been hoping to build an office tower despite some debate. “Right now the central business district is located by the PATH train and the corridor of Washington Street,” said Dell’Aquila. “So to have any substantial office buildings at the north end of Hoboken would create bookends for Washington Street.”
Dell’Aquila is the president of Mission 50 Workspaces, a shared working environment inside the Hoboken Business Center at 50 Harrison St. He sees technology firms as a key driver in the commercial development of Hoboken.
“Jersey City saw a boom in the ’80s, ’90s, ’00s with financial services back office operations,” he said. “They nicknamed the Jersey City waterfront Wall Street West. Now one of the largest growing sectors of the economy is tech. The state, county, and city should be working together to do whatever they can to lure a well-known tech company into Hoboken because it will create Silicon Alley West and possibly change the commercial office landscape not only for Hoboken, Jersey City, but the state of New Jersey.”
Jersey City
“Jersey City is diversifying away from financial services,” said Mayor Steven Fulop. “It’s not just having the financial services back office which Jersey City has had for a long time.”
Commercial development is surging forward there, with skyscrapers soon to pop up all over town. Chief among them is the Journal Squared complex, planned as three towers rising 54, 60, and 70 stories adjacent to Journal Square Station. Phase 1, the 54-story tower, broke ground last year and is expected to be completed in 24 months. Once finished, the three towers will include 1,840 apartments and 32,000 square feet of retail space.
Also coming to Jersey City is a 95-story tower scheduled to include 760 condominium units and 18,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. The building, being developed by China Overseas America, Inc., will include public spaces and plazas, including 7,365 square feet of passive park space, and will be the tallest building in New Jersey.
In his State of the City address on Feb 24, Fulop stated that Jersey City would soon have 17 of the 20 tallest buildings in New Jersey. That is due in part to substantial tax incentives from the city and state.
“Our city is more aggressive than most on tax abatement,” said Fulop. The Kushner Real Estate Group, developers of the Journal Squared project, was granted a 30-year tax abatement by the city.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) under the Grow NJ Assistance program, was designed to bring business and jobs to the state, resulting in numerous corporate office relocating to Jersey City. Among the companies receiving incentives from the EDA are VF Sportswear, parent company of Nautica and other brands, who were awarded $13.1 million to move to Jersey City with 175 jobs. Forbes Media will receive a $27 million tax grant in exchange for committing to spending 10 years in Jersey City, bringing at least 350 jobs to their new 92,720-square-foot office near the Newport PATH station. Apparel retailer Charles Komar & Sons received a $37.2 million incentive to move 500 employees from Manhattan, the company’s home for 106 years, to the Jersey City Waterfront.
Other companies making Jersey City home include JPMorgan, recipients of a $22.5 million incentive, relocating 2,612 employees and creating 1,000 jobs; and RBC, who are moving 900 jobs to a 207,000-square-foot Jersey City facility being built out at a cost of about $17 million. The EDA awarded them $7.9 million.
Also being repurposed is 30 Montgomery, a 380,000-square-foot office building, for Onyx Equities, while Goya Food has occupied a new $127 million, 638,000-square-foot warehouse and office space on County Road.
Retail space is growing as well, in part due to the explosion of residential construction and the anticipation of many more tenants. Mack-Cali’s Harborside office complex is being renovated to the tune of $15 million, upgrading the retail portion and adding a beer garden and dining area, while development proceeds on three rental towers nearby. And plans call for retail development inside the Powerhouse as part of a plan to build a 40-story residential tower next door.
“We’ve had 150 new businesses open in the last year and a half,” said Fulop. “Fifty new restaurants employing thousands of people. We’ve done that by changing incentives for people coming over here. We’ve started to do more expediting of the permit process to make it easier for businesses to open.”
North Bergen and Guttenberg
In 2014 a Big Lots store opened in the Columbia Park mall in North Bergen. “The township was happy to see them come in,” said North Bergen spokesperson Philip Swibinski. “It’s good to have large retail spaces like that. We want it to be active, drawing customers to smaller businesses in the shopping center.”
The store was the latest in a series of major retailers brought in to transform the commercial western corridor of the township. The plan was initiated about 10 to 15 years ago, according to Swibinski. “That was something that Mayor [Nicholas] Sacco really championed, redevelopment over a long period of time,” he said. “Before that time the whole span of Tonnelle Avenue was old warehouses, shuttered automotive places, old burnt out factories. It was an eyesore, and not really contributing anything to the tax base.”
Target was the first company to open a flagship store along Tonnelle Avenue, followed by others including Home Depot, Lowe’s, and BJs, culminating in Walmart four years ago.
“We haven’t had a lot of big commercial development since Walmart,” said Swibinski.
Smaller local businesses continue to pop up throughout the township, with the town seeing new convenience stores, a high-end bakery on Bergenline Avenue, and restaurants like the Braziero Churrascaria on Broadway. “It’s a positive for the community to see new businesses come in and thrive,” said Swibinski.
Guttenberg has seen a similar growth of small businesses like the popular Rumba Cubana Restaurant on Kennedy Boulevard East, across from the Galaxy Condominiums.
“There are a few new businesses on Bergenline, mostly stores,” said Mayor Gerald Drasheff. “As far as commercial development is concerned there’s nothing [new] in terms of manufacturing or anything like that.”
Secaucus
“The biggest and best use we’re seeing here is old warehouses turning into data centers,” said Mayor Michael Gonnelli. “I think we have six or seven of them now with a few more on the way.”
Secaucus is among the top locations in the U.S. for data centers, thanks in large part to the proximity to Manhattan. The most recent to be completed was a 70,000-square-foot Equinix data center on Secaucus Road. Meanwhile existing data centers from Coresite and Internap have both been undergoing expansion.
“Even the warehouse space is on the rise again,” said Gonnelli. “Old warehouse spaces are now turning into these new, state of the art facilities.”
The former Panasonic warehouse at 100 Meadowlands Parkway is a prime example. After Panasonic relocated to Newark, the 650,000-square-foot building was overhauled by property owners Hartz Mountain Enterprises, raising the ceiling and making other improvements. Ferguson Enterprises, designated the largest wholesale plumbing distributor in the United States, leased 450,000 square feet as a warehouse and a shop for professional contractor customers as they expand into the New York metropolitan region.
The new businesses assess at a much higher value than the previous occupants, meaning a higher tax ratable for the town. “We have one business, the original assessment was about $5 million,” said Gonnelli. “It’s now assessed as a data center at over $30 million.”
Hotels are also big business in Secaucus. The Starwood chain announced last week that it will bring an Aloft Hotel to Harmon Meadow, behind Buffalo Wild Wings. The eight-story hotel will feature 172 rooms, 3,000 square feet of meeting space, and an indoor splash pool and fitness center. “It’ll be breaking ground within the next few weeks,” said Gonnelli.
Of the two former Hess sites recently sold on Meadowlands Parkway, one is slated to be residential. The other will likely be a hotel, restaurant, or both, according to Gonnelli.
Major League Baseball is also expanding their facility in Secaucus. They bought the building next to them and are rebuilding to fit their needs.
Gonnelli credits the recent spurt of commercial growth to the attractiveness of the community, along with the many transportation options. “You can get anywhere you need to be from here,” he said. Plus, “We have the lowest taxes in Hudson County.”
Meadowlands area
Nearby, the American Dream mega-mall in the Meadowlands, formerly known as Xanadu, is reportedly attracting a strong lineup of retail tenants including Victoria’s Secret, The Gap, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Lord & Taylor.
Recently, lawsuits between new owners the Triple Five Group and the NY Giants and Jets were settled, clearing the way for Triple Five to move forward.
“The projected opening is in the fall of 2016,” said Debbie Patire, senior vice president of marketing for American Dream. “We are changing the exterior of the building. We are also gutting and redoing the whole inside of the building.”
They expect to spend almost $2 billion more to complete the project, which will include an indoor water park, an amusement park, an aquarium, Imax theaters, and a permanent Cirque du Soleil theater.
Union City and West New York
Planned for construction in Union City is a new nine-story, 120-room Wyndham Hotel west of Central Avenue. The facility will extend from 31st Street on one side to Sip Street on the other. “It goes through the block, with frontage on two sides,” said City Planner David Spatz.
Currently underway is the construction of a brand new Taco Bell Restaurant near 35th Street, built from the ground up. “That’s on a vacant lot that used to have used car lots on Kennedy Boulevard,” said Spatz.
Also approved for construction is a Rite Aid at 3100 Bergenline Ave. The new store will occupy the site of a former Hudson Trust Co. bank building that is being renovated.
West New York will see residential development by Riverwalk Place, near the Son Cubana Restaurant, but no major new commercial development, according to town spokesperson Pablo Fonseca.
Weehawken
Breaking ground in 2015 will be a new hotel on the waterfront in Weehawken.
“It’s a Marriott Renaissance,” said Mayor Richard Turner. “And it’s two wings. One wing is the hotel and one wing is extended stay.”
The 226-room Renaissance by Marriott Hotel and the 154-room Residence Inn for extended stays will be erected overtop and adjacent to the existing five-story garage facing Port Imperial Ferry Terminal.
Guests will share access to the outdoor terrace, pool, fitness center, a high-end restaurant on the sixth floor, and a function space for up to 750 seated guests.
“Then around the base is all spaces for stores and restaurants,” said Turner. “That becomes part of a commercial center.”
Construction is projected to take 24 to 30 months.
In addition, “Ruth’s Chris [Steak House] is expanding the restaurant and there’s a day care center in Lincoln Harbor opening up,” said Turner.
Bayonne
Bayonne is on the cusp of major change, with The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor planning to begin construction on the property formerly called the Military Ocean Terminal. Plans call for 350 rental units in Harbor Station North, while the 47 acres of Harbor Station South will be a commercial sector.
Harbor South is being designed by a Chinese import and export company called Waitex that already has a warehouse in Bayonne. They have designed similar projects in Milan and Beijing and are expected to have the Bayonne plans finalized by June. The first phase will be patterned after Woodbury Commons as a shopping destination, with about 50 different middle- and high-end shops and restaurants laid out in a sprawling complex of two-story brownstone-type buildings.
Bayonne is also in talks with ferry operators about establishing a line to New York. Not only would that allow for commuter transportation into the city, it would provide a means for city residents to visit Bayonne for shopping.
The second phase of commercial development calls for a hotel and convention center. Among other things, the hotel would provide a place to stay for tourists taking the Royal Caribbean cruises from the Cape Liberty port in Bayonne.
Additional construction projects are planned for other sections of the city, including new shops near Route 440 and a St. Barnabas-affiliated clinic on Broadway near 23rd St.
The goal is to transform Bayonne and give it “a Hoboken feel, but make it look more like Morristown,” according to Director of Municipal Services Robert Wondolowski.
“A cool thing about what’s happening now is we’re being contacted by some chains that haven’t been interested in Bayonne, like Starbucks and Panera Bread,” he said. “Conceptually people thought the demographic here couldn’t sustain a chain like that but now they’re interested in coming here.”
Additionally, industrial and tech companies are starting to show interest in Bayonne due to the proximity to New York and the lower leasing prices. Wondolowski hopes to attract companies with 60 to 120 employees, specifically in the technology sector, to turn Bayonne into a small tech hub.
“There have been a lot of talks and meetings about these projects,” he said. “This administration is all about execution and actually getting things built, so we’ve taken on the task to not only get these deals negotiated and given incentives like PILOTs and abatements but pushing some of the developers here to actually start building and creating, which is exciting for us.”
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.