With the holidays upon us, we’re excited to bring you a look back at our top stories of 2024, including our most-read items and a few editor’s picks. You can catch up on our daily “best of” emails below. We will also keep you updated in the event of any breaking news.
Editor’s Note
Hear directly from Editor Joshua Burd as he brings you the highlights of this month’s issue of Real Estate NJ and his observations from recent interviews.
Looking forward
As you’ll read in this month’s cover story, builders and advocates see New Jersey’s new affordable housing guidelines as a good starting point after more than a decade of uncertainty, conveying cautious optimism even as they confront the financial hurdles, legal battles and political debates that have slowed housing production in the past.
Transition time
I’ve come to learn that stories in our People on the Move section are among our most popular online and in print. I understand why — relationships in commercial real estate go back years or decades in many cases, meaning there’s no shortage of interest when a friend or business partner earns a promotion or a position at a new firm. That’s especially true when it comes to developers and owners, as I was reminded earlier this year when we covered two major moves by Accordia.
The right mix
It may well be decades before New Jersey’s suburban office market is no longer overbuilt. That is, of course, assuming that property owners and local officials find the type of common ground needed for redevelopment, as we try to highlight when we come across those stories. We have one such example in our latest issue.
Sprucing it up
New Jersey is largely built out, at least as far as the best locations are concerned, meaning redevelopment is often the only option. That’s driving a series of new investments by shopping center owners that have secured new deals with supermarkets and other big-box tenants. Those landlords are now renovating their assets in conjunction with the new anchor leases, which figures to help attract new retailers to those properties.
Bearing fruit
I’m as guilty as anyone of overusing words like “transformative” when it comes to major redevelopment projects. But it seems in some instances like there’s no avoiding it. A case in point is a plan for Woodbridge’s Metropark train station, where surface parking lots will become a new office and ambulatory care center spanning nearly 250,000 square feet, as well as 235 luxury apartments and retail space. If you ask me, that seems transformative enough.
Our cover story this month is a deep dive on that project, which Hackensack Meridian Health unveiled in early March alongside Gov. Phil Murphy and a team that includes Russo Development, Onyx Equities and Dinallo Development.
A closer look
I’d venture to say that green design is still underappreciated as a practice and as an industry within the broader commercial real estate sector. I’ll even take some ownership of that, as someone who is meant to highlight where the market is and where it’s going in the great state of New Jersey, including the increasingly important topic of sustainability. That’s our focus in this month’s cover story, where we explore some of the more cutting-edge, eco-conscious features that multifamily builders are weaving into their projects. That includes everything from rainwater recycling to on-site composting systems that produce fertilizer for landscaping, as we find in a new luxury rental property in Jersey City. Halpern Real Estate Ventures, the developer of what’s known as Birch House, says those choices stem from the firm’s own corporate philosophy and a desire to meet the market where it’s going, even if those features are not quite widespread in New Jersey (not yet, anyway).
