Jersey City Rising

[JCMAN320]

Yea boy!! HAHA. Keep those jobs coming to JC baby. Here is more news pertaining to JSQ.

HCCC buys Square area building

Thursday, August 10, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

As part of an overall county plan to own rather than rent its space, the Hudson County Community College has purchased 2-10 Enos Place in Jersey City, the building that houses the county's welfare offices.

The college paid $3 million for the three-story brick building on Jan. 31, said Jennifer Christopher, a spokeswoman for the college.

Within five years, the college plans to demolish the structure and build a parking garage on the site; and the county plans to relocate its welfare offices to the old Block Drug building on Cornelison Avenue, officials said.

The county raised the $3 million purchase price for the Enos Place property by selling 15-year bonds, said county spokesman Jim Kennelly. Under the state's "Chapter 12" program, the state will split the debt service on the loan with the county on a 50-50 basis, he said.

In the meantime, the county's Department of Health and Human Services, including the Divisions of Social Services and Welfare, will continue to occupy the space, officials said.

The county had been paying Journal Square Equities, the previous owner, $702,242-a-year to lease the facilities, Kennelly said.

By the end of the 2008, the county plans to have relocated 14 different departments in six buildings into the old Block Drug building on Cornelison Avenue, which the county purchased for $14 million two years ago, Kennelly added.

At that point, the county will realize a savings of $470,000-a-year, he said.

The college is investing roughly $73 million in Journal Square and North Hudson over the next five years, Christopher said.

Besides buying the Enos Place property, the college plans to build a new library at 67 Sip Ave., construct science labs at 162 Sip Ave. and 870 Bergen Ave., and acquire 141 Sip Ave. for green space, she said.

In addition, the college is building a new North Campus in Union City and making masonry and roof repairs to its headquarters at 25 Pathside in Journal Square, Christopher said.

[steveikin]

New Jersey awards $21.9M jobs grant to Deutsche Bank to bring 1,200 jobs to Downtown Jersey City
NJ awards $21.9M jobs grant to Deutsche Bank
by David Jones - Crain's New York

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority is trying to lure Deutsche Bank to Jersey City with a $21.9 million business employment incentive grant.

[snip]

Interesting, and potenitally good news. Thanks, and please keep us posted as to whether the grant/jobs come to JC. Cheers.

[TimmyG]

^^^^
That's good news for Journal Square. Has anyone heard more about the highrises that were proposed for the square?

[JCMAN320]

Yes. They will be built because they were approved. The Harwood Comapny is in the midst of trying to buy the remaining buildings that are there. Two buildings are already torn down and 3 more to go. They will have high end stores on the bottom with big high windows and the stock ticker going around the base. Also the city and with help from my college Saint Peter's, are redoing Bergen Ave from Montgomery to Sip Ave right at JSQ with new sidewalks, brickpavers, parking meters, decorative street lamps, store front facade resotration and the street will be repaved and now with the old school look for Bergen Ave from Communipaw all the way to Sip Ave joinign it with the redone JSQ. Also McGinley Square Park will get redone into a beautiful public plaza and Bergen Square, where JC began in 1660 as a small village, will be done very well and made to look old world. It really is becoming a pleasent walk from PATH to Saint Peter's College.

With the old configuriation of Bergen Square from 1660, the old Bergen Church from 1730, the cemateries across from it dating back to 1660 with the original founders of JC and with namesakes of some of the streets here buried there, the Apple Tree House where Genreal Goerge Washington and Genereal Lafayette met under an apple tree to discuss battle plans for the battles here in Jersey City and New York, a new McGinley Square Park, updates streetscape, the old Med Center getting redone and the Armory, the "Heart" of Jersey City is getting revived

Also a few scenes for a movie is being filmed currently at the old Loews Jersey Wonder Theatre across from PATH Plaza.

With a mighty Downtown, Midtown Jersey City is on the comeback everyone watch out!!

[TriHobo]

Quandary for Office Tenants: Downtown or Jersey City?


The developer Larry A. Silverstein has been betting that tenants for the new office towers at ground zero will finally come knocking on his doors when space gets tight in Midtown and rents soar to unprecedented levels.
Indeed, after largely ignoring his newly built skyscraper at 7 World Trade Center for two years, tenants like Moody’s Investors Service; Mansueto Ventures, a business magazine publisher; and Darby & Darby, a law firm, have suddenly started leasing space there that would bring hundreds of workers downtown.

But leasing is also getting hot again one mile to the west, in Jersey City, where a forest of office towers grew up on the waterfront in the 1990’s as companies fled the higher costs of Manhattan.

Citigroup, which announced two years ago that it was moving 1,600 workers to western New Jersey from downtown, just signed a lease that would send another 1,200 high-paying executives from Lower Manhattan to the Newport complex in Jersey City. Deutsche Bank is nearing completion of a deal to move 1,200 workers to the Harborside complex in Jersey City from Manhattan.

Until recently, the percentage of vacant offices in Jersey City languished in the double digits, refusing to budge. So most developers scurried to erect condominium towers. But after word of Citigroup’s possible move to Jersey City first surfaced three months ago, the level of interest in the New Jersey waterfront by New York-based companies has jumped to the point where the developer Richard Lefrak is considering building his eighth office tower in Jersey City, at a site now earmarked for residential development.

“There’s a lot of activity on the waterfront,” said Mitchell E. Hersh, chief executive of Mack-Cali Realty, which owns the Harborside complex and is negotiating with Deutsche Bank. “Rents here are roughly half of what they are in Midtown. We’re seeing a lot of interest, corporate expansions as well as financial services.”

The moves by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank are only the latest illustrations of the difficulty of retaining jobs in New York City and rebuilding the business district in Lower Manhattan. Increasingly since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, financial institutions and other companies have sought to decentralize. And with rents rising again in Manhattan, there is an economic incentive to relocate at least technical jobs to less-expensive places.

In the past, the battle for jobs has often led to border wars, as New Jersey offered sizable subsidies to lure companies across the Hudson and New York countered with tax breaks of its own to keep the companies in place. Many economists condemned the strategy as self-defeating for both sides.

Eric J. Deutsch, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, a business group, said that demand was still growing downtown, especially since rents in some prime Midtown buildings have climbed above $100 per square foot a year. In the last 18 months, he said, companies from outside Lower Manhattan have leased 1.5 million square feet of space downtown. In addition, Royal Bank of Canada, the AIG insurance company and Legg Mason, the brokerage firm, are all about to sign leases for some of the large blocks of downtown space.

To retain jobs and handle growth, he said, there is a need for more new buildings. “While the New Jersey waterfront will always be a lower-cost alternative,” Mr. Deutsch added, “Lower Manhattan is the ideal location and a better value for tenants who want to be in New York City.”

There are four new towers planned for ground zero, with 8.8 million square feet of space, and they face a lot of competition from New Jersey, which offers even larger tax breaks and other subsidies than a tenant can get downtown.

The lure of lower costs and tax breaks can be enticing, even to a company like Citigroup, whose chief executive, Charles Prince, is co-chairman of the Partnership for New York City, a civic group working to entice companies downtown.

After Citigroup announced in 2004 that it was sending 1,600 workers from Lower Manhattan to Warren, N.J., a spokeswoman vowed: “We’re keeping all our space in Lower Manhattan. We’re not giving up an inch of space.”
But now the bank has sold its building at 250 West Street and is moving the executives who worked there to Jersey City.

The average rent downtown may be $38.57 a square foot per year, 35 percent cheaper than the Midtown average, according to CB Richard Ellis, a real estate broker. But the average on the Jersey waterfront is only $28.87 a square foot. And under New Jersey’s Business Employment Incentive Program, Citigroup will get a tax rebate worth an estimated $37.1 million over 10 years and Deutsche Bank will get one worth about $22 million over the same time period.

Shannon Bell, a spokeswoman for Citigroup, said yesterday that the bank remained the largest private employer in New York City. “We expect to continue to add jobs here and to keep our headquarters here,” she said.
Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, said that another border war would be unwise.

“What’s important to New York is that these jobs remain within our regional economy,” she said. “We’re long past days where New Jersey is the enemy. It’s more important that these jobs don’t move to Maryland, Tampa or India.”

[macmini]

Renderings of Monaco 1, 2 and Sanremo





http://www.slcearch.com/

Go to residential + projects and go downt to MONACO 1,2


New project on Washington Blvd.


The towers on Washington Blvd. would be known as the San Remo, Monaco I, and Monaco II. The developer is Roseland Property Company in Short Hills, N.J. The construction date has not been determined.


James Davidson, the architect for San Remo, Monaco I, and Monaco II, gave an overview of the project's architectural plans.

Davidson said the three towers will have parking decks; the San Remo with its own and the Monaco I and Monaco II sharing one connecting both buildings, with entrances to parking on Fourth Street and Sixth Street.

He also said there would a renovation of the hotel and added space to the hotel that would accommodate 200 more hotel units, over 8,000 square feet of retail, and parking for retail.

Planning Board Chairman John Cardwell told Davidson that he hopes the developer does provide parking for the retail, since the Planning Board was "very deceived" several years before when approving the final construction plans for the Marbella Apartments only a block away from the proposed towers.

"Nobody never answered us, nobody responded when we asked why do you have five spaces, when we approved 36 spaces for retail...so I hope you don't deceive us," said Cardwell.

Planning Board Commissioner Jeni Branum pointed out there should be more recreation space for children and even a dog run for the three-tower project.

"You come here with 674 units and 200 for the hotel; you can't expect those people to use what's already down at Newport....you got to bring green space, you got to bring activity space, and I just don't mean pools," said Branum.

Davidson said there would be a recreation area in each of the three towers.

[RandySavage]

Gotta love those classic Jersey quotes at the end...

[Dagrecco82]

Fancy!

[badger2]

JCMan - or anyone else for that matter....has anyone heard ANYTHING on the American Can project???

[JCMAN320]

I love those towers. I'm also loving the news that the office boom is starting ot emerge in Jersey City. See people this why 85% of the trading that occurs on "Wall Street" actually occurs in Jersey City.

Also I have not heard any more news on the American Can Comapny whatever news on it that was reported last is as much as I know to date.

[NewYorkYankee]

I love those towers too! Everytime I've rode down the West Side Highway I always look toward NJ, its skyline is impressive.

[krulltime]

I love those towers too! Everytime I've rode down the West Side Highway I always look toward NJ, its skyline is impressive.

You can thank Manhattan for that.

Those new towers are very nice indeed. Why can they do towers like that in Brooklyn or Queens is beyond me.

[pianoman11686]

I love those towers. I'm also loving the news that the office boom is starting ot emerge in Jersey City. See people this why 85% of the trading that occurs on "Wall Street" actually occurs in Jersey City.

I find that hard to believe, especially considering how much trading occurs in Stamford these days.

As for firms relocating to Jersey City: I don't have a problem with it when it's a result of limited supply in Manhattan pushing firms to look elsewhere. What I do have a big problem with is absurdly large tax breaks and incentives being given to all these financial firms, most of which make profits of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars a year. I remember reading somewhere recently that between only 1996 and 2001, New Jersey spent $550 million to lure companies from New York, most of that being concentrated on the Gold Coast. This kind of government policy only puts additional pressure on New York City and State to offer their own incentives, and sets up possibilities for a bidding war where ultimately, the location that "wins" often loses tax revenue because of all the incentives. It just doesn't make sense, economically, but is rather more of a political move for a mayor, or governor, or senator to proclaim, several years down the line, that he/she helped create all these new jobs and the associated benefits with them.

All that being said: as long as the NYSE and the Federal Reserve Bank physically remain on Wall Street, the corporate elite will remain in Manhattan. It still is, singlehandedly, the financial center of the US, and renowned as being the biggest market for stock trading in the world. What I'd really like to see is a push to increase the liquidity and derivatives markets, which these days are much more concentrated in London and secondary markets like Zurich and Frankfurt. That would really lend some credence to New York assuming the title of financial capital of the world. Jersey City, meanwhile, will continue to remain relatively anonymous as a destination mainly for back-office jobs.

[z22]

What is this buidling?

[stache]

I was wondering that myself.