NORTHEAST SNAPSHOT, JULY 2007

Central New Jersey Shore Retail Market

Greenman

The retail market throughout New Jersey, as well as the rest of the country, is experiencing a major up tick.  The strength of the economy, coupled with aggressive developers and flourishing retailers, has made this one of the most heated markets of all time.

Retail development in New Jersey is a highly competitive and difficult form of development due to a variety of restrictions, including municipal bureaucracies, ever tightening environmental standards and inadequate infrastructure, such as older roads and services. Despite these obstacles and the fact that both major accomplished retail developers and neophytes in the industry  compete vigorously for development opportunities, the sector is growing at an incredibly fast pace.

While all of New Jersey is quite active, southern New Jersey has become a hot bed of activity with numerous landmark developments. These developments, coupled with the ever-growing south New Jersey demographic, will likely assist the retail market in its continued flourish. South New Jersey has seen some unprecedented growth and has entered the main stream in retail with the Towne Place and Market Place at Garden State Park located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Further north in New Rutherford, The Mills Corporation and Mack-Cali Realty Corporation’s long awaited Meadowlands Xanadu project has begun. In addition to these new developments, the state is seeing renovations of existing centers and a move to “recycle” environmentally distressed properties throughout the entire state.

The retail market has seen several new developers create significant projects in New Jersey. D & O Associates of Colts Neck, with the assistance of CBRE Retail Services Group in Central Jersey, is developing a 185,000-square-foot project in Hammonton, New Jersey, and East Hollywood Development Company, who also selected CBRE for assistance, is constructing a 300,000-square-foot waterfront retail project that will be accompanied by a full-service hotel and conference center, as well as New Jersey’s first, state-of-the-art film and television studio, which will encompass four structures and total 150,000 square feet.

With all this development and demographic promise, retailers are scrambling to lease up space in New Jersey. Simon Properties has added Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom to the Quakerbridge Mall in Lawrenceville, Tiffany’s has signed a lease for a portion of the Garmany Building on Broad Street in Red Bank and Apple Computer has come to the Freehold Raceway Mall in Freehold. New and exciting retailers in Central New Jersey include: Uniqlo, Apple Computer, Ricky’s Candy Cones and Chaos, White House | Black Market and Tiffany’s. New Jersey residents should benefit from this retail upswing through 2007 as developers and retailers work to deliver new tenants and more shopping options to the Central New Jersey market.

— David Greenman is first vice president of CB Richard Ellis’ Retail Services Group in East Brunswick, New Jersey.


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