Multi Housing News May 2012 : Page 27
Glory Days Ahead The redevelopment of Liberty Harbor is poised to be a huge success for Jersey City By Michael Ratliff, Associate Editor W ith rents in Manhattan expected to increase 7 percent in 2012, it is no surprise that many apartment seekers are looking to the outer boroughs and New Jersey as a refuge. Queens, Brooklyn and Hoboken are well-known hot spots for young professionals looking for a better bang for their buck when it comes down to both space and amenities. Get ready to add Jersey City to that list. The state’s second largest city sits just over the Hudson Riv-er from Lower Manhattan. It has been quickly overcoming its stigma of urban decline thanks to the availability of underde-veloped waterfront land. The industrial businesses that vacated from the 1950s through 1970s left behind a plethora of vacant rail yards and factories, space that allowed for a full-on urban renaissance that began in the 1980s and is still moving at full steam today. This is perhaps most visible in the success of the Ex-change Place fi nancial district, colloquially called “Wall Street West,” which experienced a rapid construction of high-rise offi ce buildings—assets that are now occupied by the likes of Goldman Sachs, UBS and Merrill Lynch. Add in a light rail system that debuted in 2000 and now offers seamless access to Manhattan-bound PATH trains and you have an area primed for extremely successful transit-oriented development. “There is a ton of land and it is not developed, and it is extraor-dinarily convenient to be next to New York City,” says Christian Giordano, principal & director of Architectural Design at HLW International LLP, a global fi rm that is designing several high-profi le multifamily developments in Jersey City. “The city knows they are sitting on valuable, undeveloped land, so they are really encouraging developers to come in and build these apartments. And the developers are trying to get the one-bedroom crowd that wants a bigger place and wants to have a little bit of an easier lifestyle than living in Manhattan.” HLW International is currently designing a series of towers for a joint venture between Mack-Cali Realty Corp. and Iron-state Development Co. in Exchange Place. The fi rst phase of the development will include two waterfront towers with approxi-mately 500 units each. Ground should break in late 2012 with an expected construction period of two years. Just a few thousand feet southwest of Exchange Place is Liber-ty Harbor, a high-density, transit-oriented infi ll redevelopment that is home to some of the city’s newest multifamily projects. The 80-acre, 28-block neighborhood is home to 225 Grand, an-other HLW International designed building, this time developed by Ironstate Development Co. and Kushner Real Estate Group. The fact that this building leased up just 10 months after its May 2010 completion demonstrates just how strong Jersey City mar-ket fundamentals are. “Jersey City is unique in that it has better transportation to www.multi-housingnews.com | May 2012 27
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