There are countless bills, regulations and laws in Trenton that have little or nothing to do with commercial real estate, meaning you won’t find them covered in these pages or on our website. Until recently, that group included a law that provides tax credits to production companies that brought their film and television shoots to New Jersey. Admittedly, the law could help individual neighborhoods or communities, but it seemed a stretch that a production would have a measurable impact on New Jersey’s development and construction industries.
What changed? We learned last September that a developer has proposed building a 135,000-square-foot studio complex in Jersey City, with the very purpose of capturing the production companies that it says are coming here because of the film tax credit incentive. The developer, Criterion Group, said it already has filming projects lined up for the space, ahead of its planned opening later this year.
As you’ll read in this month’s cover story, other developers and property owners are making a similar bet, amid surging demand from the film and television industry. Market insiders and state officials say the interest from developers and landlords is on the rise, even despite some criticism of the program and uncertainty over the supply of the tax credits.
Our January issue also features a Q&A with Elisa Buckley, a senior project manager at Langan, who recently took the helm as president of Commercial Real Estate Women of New Jersey. With a one-year term ahead of her, she now hopes to further expand membership and improve access to the chapter’s events, among other goals, after more than a decade with the organization.
Elsewhere, we bring you an interview with Clark Machemer, a familiar face in New Jersey commercial real estate, who is now filling his pipeline as the head of Northeast operations for Crow Holdings Industrial. We also sit down with the four name partners at the newly minted Murphy Schiller & Wilkes LLP, an outgrowth of the former Murphy Partners law firm. Led by Kellen and Chris Murphy, Matthew Schiller and Charles Wilkes, the team now hopes to fill what they feel is a void in New Jersey for a full-service, boutique commercial real estate law practice, but one that could match the depth and experience of a powerhouse firm.
We are as excited as ever to start our fourth year of publishing Real Estate NJ. The industry has been good to us, as it has to many of you, so we are eager to see what the year brings as we continue this unprecedented economic expansion. Many of you are bullish on the year ahead, and you can read all about it in our latest Market Forecast section. Beyond that, we hope you continue to find everything you need in our monthly magazine and online at www.RE-NJ.com. Thank you for reading and best of luck in 2020. Enjoy the issue!
Joshua Burd
Editor
josh@re-nj.com