Hoboken / Manhattan Real Estate Blog

By KEVIN G. DeMARRAIS
STAFF WRITER

The public auction ended as abruptly as the final episode of “The Sopranos.”

But it seemed to solidify opinions that the North Jersey condominium market remains alive — if the price is right.

The developer’s principal admitted the auction was a marketing gimmick, created to kick off a sales campaign for the luxury condo complex on Hoboken’s quickly changing west side.

As of a week ago, Remi Cos. planned to put 40 of the 128 units on the auction block Sunday to see what the market would bear. Thirty units of what is being called Velocity/Hoboken had previously been sold, the company said.

However, by the time proceedings began in a Jersey City hotel ballroom, the list had been cut to 16, and without notice, it was cut to nine after about a half-hour of spirited bidding.

The apartments that were sold brought in $3.6 million, about two-thirds of what developers said was their last asking price, but a third higher than minimum prices they had set.

Prices ranged from $369,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $502,000 for a two-bedroom apartment.

“The people were willing to bid on one-bedrooms, but not two,” Erik Kaiser, principal of Hoboken-based Remi Cos., said in explaining why he halted the auction.

Many people interested in two-bedroom units said they felt uncomfortable with the auction process, preferring to negotiate in more traditional ways, Kaiser said.

He said he was pleased with the results and the amount of interest in the complex, and predicted that at least 20 people who attended the auction, but did not bid, would purchase two-bedroom units within a week.

About 200 people showed up, and some viewed the sudden end to proceedings as a sign that the condo market is hurting.

“It’s bad P.R.,” said Sean Munroe of Ridgewood, who predicted that Sunday’s results would push prices down. “There’s a glut of condos here.”

Also, despite the fact that the complex is within a block of the NJ Transit Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stop, its location across town from Hoboken’s main commercial district and next to a public housing project works against it.

“I’m not sure how far west people are willing to go,” he said. “It will be interesting to see what happens.”

Standing outside the four-story brick-faced condo several hours before the bidding started, Kaiser expressed confidence that with demand high in Hoboken and the amenities included in Velocity, the units would sell, even though the condo market is “calm.”

“This town has four walls; it’s as big as it’s going to get,” he said.

He said the auction would give potential buyers the opportunity to create a market.

“There is a question mark on every building as to its value,” he said. He said having an auction was a risk, but it was worth it because it created a buzz about the complex as his company begins to actively market the property that was completed on June 1.

“We had more traffic in one month than we could have gotten in two years,” he said.

Even before the auction was halted, Deedre Miranda, who rents an apartment in Hoboken, had left.

Like many of the attendees, she was looking for a bargain, but the bidding was “a little past” her price range.

But to Bruce Snyder, who is renting an apartment in New York City, the price was fair.

He won the bidding at $502,000 for one of two two-bedroom units sold, and was willing to pay about 10 percent more after his due diligence convinced him that concern about the location was not warranted.

“I feel we got a decent deal, but it was not a steal,” he said.

Manhattan emigres altering once-gritty birthplace of Sinatra
By Terrence Dopp
Bloomberg News

April 29 2007

Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando helped make Hoboken famous. Now designer Michael Graves and builder Robert Toll are making the waterfront town across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan a haven for the rich and famous.

Hoboken, N.J., a city with working-class roots, long served as a refuge of junior Wall Street analysts. Its newer residents include Gov. Jon Corzine and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, as builders convert apartments into luxury condominiums with fitness clubs, doormen and shuttles to New York City-bound trains and ferries.

Demand for condos in the square-mile city of 40,000 residents is a lifeline for builders such as Toll Brothers Inc. that are weathering a yearlong decline in the U.S. housing market. Horsham, Pa.-based Toll has three condo projects under way in Hoboken. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. already has sold 33 of the 37 condo units in the W Hoboken, a luxury hotel that it plans to open next year.

“We’re killing ‘em in Hoboken,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll said at a March conference in Las Vegas.

Nancy Chin, who was born and raised in New York, said she recently purchased a one-bedroom waterfront condo with an oversized terrace at Toll Brothers’ Hudson Tea development in Hoboken. Those units start at $600,000.

“We always loved the city, but we wanted to be on this side,” said Chin, 57, a real estate agent and empty-nester. “Over there, you would have a view of a wall.”

Corzine, a former chief executive of Goldman, Sachs & Co., moved to a rental in Hudson Tea when he was divorcing in 2002. He may run state affairs from the condo or from the governor’s mansion in Princeton when he is released from the hospital following his April 12 automobile crash, said Tom Shea, his chief of staff.

At Hudson Tea, where Manning also lives, a 1,300-square-foot, two-bedroom condo with cherry hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen with six-burner stove, marble bath, and 13-foot ceilings goes for $1.5 million. That’s about $1,154 a square foot. Manhattan condos sold for an average of $1,142 a square foot last year, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.

Hudson Tea has a residents’ club with a theater, fireplace and business center; a fitness center; and an indoor children’s play area. Chin said the amenities and location won her and her husband over.

Hoboken, birthplace of Frank Sinatra, was a thriving industrial hub of shipping and commerce in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, home to products including Lipton Tea, Maxwell House coffee and Hostess cakes. The city was portrayed as a blue-collar shipping port in the Oscar-winning 1954 film “On the Waterfront,” starring Brando.

The maritime industry crumbled in the 1970s as companies moved to bigger ports with deeper waters. A decade later, students began flocking to Hoboken for its affordable, renovated brownstones and townhouses and easy access to New York.

Junior Wall Streeters moved in as the number of housing units in Hoboken jumped 14 percent from 1990 to 2000. The 2000 U.S. Census showed that 98 percent of the city’s housing units were occupied, 77 percent by renters.

In 2004, Toll Brothers began converting apartments to condos in what were once Lipton Tea buildings. The company is renovating an adjacent warehouse into residences called Harborside Lofts, and it has cleared away nearby Maxwell House structures to make way for the four-building Maxwell Place, which will have more than 800 units.

Architect Graves designed the lobbies, elevators and hallways for Maxwell Place, as well as the condo interiors. The development has a heated rooftop pool and garden.

“We’ve taken the best-in-show of what we find in Manhattan and we’ve brought it over here,” said Henry Waller, project manager for City Living, the urban development division of Toll Brothers.

Toll Brothers is targeting Manhattan emigres seeking more space and features, empty nesters from the suburbs, and families who don’t want to give up urban life, he said.

“Some people feel it’s a bit nicer living outside of Manhattan and looking at it than it is living in it,” said Brian D. Meunch, of BrianDavid Realtors, a Hoboken real estate agency.

Not everyone agrees. Hoboken is a nice place to visit but not somewhere he would want to live, said Oliver Ryan of New York housing blog www.apartmenttherapy.com.

“Hoboken seems very 1990s,” Ryan said. Even so, he said, it’s a smart real estate investment.

Michael Barry, whose Hoboken-based Applied Development Company LLC is building the W Hotel, said residences there will range from $1.8 million to $2.7 million. Monthly fees of about $1,200 will pay for services including maids and valets, he said. Spa treatments, pet walkers and in-home botanical services are extra.

A similar, upper-floor apartment on the water would cost a minimum of $4 million on the New York side of the Hudson.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Hoboken’s Monroe Center, on the 700 block of Monroe Street, is finally getting off the ground, albeit much slower than most officials expected.

The site’s first visible commercial ground-floor tenant - the restaurant Shades of Hoboken - opened its doors shortly before the new year, marking the first upscale eating establishment to set up shop on the city’s west side.

Besides a $75 Kobe beef steak, the restaurant boasts free parking in the rear and live music seven days a week, says head chef Larry Kemet.

But like all restaurants, Shades of Hoboken needs a successful first year and it does not appear to be getting help from the developments in the area, including the Monroe Center.

I attended a groundbreaking last May for the proposed 435 condos, but the dream of a mixed-use centerpiece for the neighborhood has yet to really move forward since Mayor David Roberts and others flipped ceremonial dirt.

“It’s pre-construction certainly, but we are moving ahead, determined to produce a superior product in that neighborhood,” said Michael Turner, spokesman for Monroe Center Development.

Nearby, the 128-unit Velocity is also moving slower than expected, dragged down by the repeated breaking of windows at the construction site.

The good news, said Kemet, is business has been good at nights, especially on the weekends.

“We are getting a lot of neighborhood people and the band is bringing people in,” said Kemet. “When I went up to Washington Street to eat, I never picked a place. I would just eat where I could park, so it’s a plus we have free parking available.”

Rumors are swirling that entertainment behemoths Disney and Viacom are considering leasing office space in Jersey City after New York City rents soared.

These billion-dollar entertainment companies would be a welcome addition to the city’s office market, providing job diversity to a market that’s flooded with companies from the financial sector, not too mention a little corporate prestige. .

New York City officials recently made some changes to their “421A” tax abatement program that officials on this side of the river should take a hard look at.

Recognizing there’s little need to spark development on some of the most lucrative land in the city, Big Apple politicos are now requiring developers to include a large percentage of affordable housing in order to receive the tax carrot, while continuing the more liberal abatement program in areas of the city that still need a push.

If this sounds familiar, it should.

New York City tax abatements are typically offered for five years and the recipient pays little taxes on the property.

Meanwhile, in Jersey City, tax abatements are issued for 20 to 30 years. The recipient pays substantially more in “payments in lieu of taxes” and the city’s cut is substantially more than it would be under traditional taxes, which must be divvied up with schools and the county.

By JOHN DEINER
The Washington Post

HOBOKEN, N.J. — For the past two decades, Hoboken — star of 1954’s “On the Waterfront,” birthplace of the zipper and the ice cream cone, victim of a vicious economic downswing in the 1970s — has been busy reinventing itself.

Frank Sinatra was born here, but if he saw it now, he’d probably want to stop spreading the news about “New York, New York.” These days, it’s more “The Way You Look Tonight.” Parks and walking trails have replaced rotting piers, while new construction and renovated brownstones have led to an influx of bars and restaurants. Condos glisten, fountains burble, money is spent.

Hoboken has, in short order, become a contendah.
Advertisement

Today it’s a city of simple pleasures, worthy of a quick visit if you can tear yourself away from the Big Apple. Frank-ophiles can follow in their idol’s loafers on a walking tour, while stores like Wee Beasties (for pampered tots) and Good Kleen Fun (home of the $6 bath fizzy) peddle doodads to inveterate shoppers. Barhounds may want to sidle up to the rail at Texas Arizona or the Black Bear for people-watching and a pilsner.

Come nightfall, pizza parlors and sushi joints compete for empty stomachs with gastronomic stars such as Amanda’s and Frankie & Johnnie’s. Couples can get a carafe of a fine boxed vintage (Red or white? Does it really matter?) or order up $10 martinis bathed in a neon glow. Club music mingles with Dean Martin, and the later it gets, the louder it becomes.

Still, it ain’t Manhattan. But that’s OK. If New York is the tuxedo of American cities, Hoboken is a stylish pair of weathered Levi’s — with a Ragu stain on the thigh.

The waiter at Leo’s Grandevous, an Italian cubbyhole a few blocks from the hub of activity along Washington Street, is ready with an answer almost before the question is asked.

“Shrimp Sinatra? It’s a mix of artichokes, shrimp and mushrooms, served over pasta. It’ll get your night going,” he says. Leo’s walls are plastered with photos of the Chairman of the Board, and a shrine has been erected over the bar. That’s supposedly Frank’s favorite stool lying on its side above the cash register.

Sinatra, Sinatra, Sinatra. He’s everywhere in Hoboken. You can walk along Frank Sinatra Drive or watch cruise ships steam by Frank Sinatra Park. At Bagels on the Hudson, a creepy caricature of him touts baked goods on a sidewalk sign. For a buck, the Hoboken Historical Museum will sell you “Hoboken: The Sinatra Tour,” a 23-stop journey through the city’s streets. “Don’t expect much at his birthplace and some of the other sites,” warns a volunteer as he hands over the map. “But you’ll still get a good sense of the man.”

Though the area had been settled since Colonial days, the city — nestled in that sweet spot between the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and Jersey City and Weehawken (OK, maybe that’s not so sweet) — was incorporated in 1855. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a thriving shipping and commerce port, and such companies as Lipton Tea and Hostess were based here.

A few signs remain of that not-so-ancient history, with some buildings in disrepair and a skeletal pier jutting into the Hudson. But the Brandoesque longshoremen are long gone, replaced by a curvy pedestrian path that lopes along the river.

Because parts of Hoboken occupy a gentle slope (capped by the Stevens Institute of Technology, on a bluff about 100 feet over the river), walking can be a bit strenuous. But Hobokenites are a sturdy breed, so that’s not enough activity. Hence, there’s a skateboard park on Frank Sinatra Drive, with a kid’s-eye view of the Empire State Building, and down the bend in Sinatra Park, sweaty adults play soccer while onlookers dodge bicyclists. At Pier A — a dock turned green space, with a massive lawn, a fountain and a gazebo — joggers nearly outnumber sunbathers.

Nearby is the city’s Little League field, a pint-size version of a big-league stadium, complete with a fancy scoreboard and plastic seats.

Apparently, the first organized game of baseball was played in Hoboken, though that’s a matter of some dispute. But this is a burg of other indisputable firsts. Some are them head-scratchers (First Woman to Caulk Ships), others cheer-inducing (First Oreo Cookie).

You can’t trudge far in Hoboken without bumping into something Italian, be it person or cannoli. For the latter, there’s Carlo’s City Hall Bake Shop, a few blocks from the Hoboken terminal (a web of light rail, trains and ferries). The bakery has been around since 1910, and from the look of things, many of its patrons were at the grand opening.

After a day of carb-loading at Giovanni’s (greasy, perfect pizza, just the way Mom used to order), Carlo’s and Leo’s, it’s almost a relief when the sun goes down and the bar scene kicks in. Not that the eating is over: Diners are elbow to elbow at sidewalk tables along Washington Street, at fashionable spots such as the Elysian Cafe and Robongi.

As the evening progresses, the hubbub grows louder. At Bahama Mama’s tiki lounge, a bachelorette party is slurring through a song; the bride-to-be is the one in the veil and flashing deeley boppers. A few steps away at the Black Bear, guys pawing longnecks are watching baseball on the pub’s two dozen TVs. The Shannon Lounge, BarNone, McSwiggan’s, Buskers: Anything that serves Miller Lite on tap is jammed.

Off the main strip at Willie McBride’s, a limo is parked out front and a crowd has gathered on the sidewalk. A celebrity, perhaps? Nah, just a bunch of New Jerseyites suffering through the state’s new indoor smoking ban.

The Brass Rail is, by contrast, eerily tranquil. A disk jockey is positioned near the door, though, and he’s pacing, clearly tired of the easy-listening tunes hanging in the air. At 11:01, he approaches a bartender, smiles and says, “OK, enough of this. Let’s crank it up.”

Sunday, July 2, 2006

By JAMES AHEARN

A TRENDY, large but human-scaled “New Urbanism” development is to begin rising this fall in Wood-Ridge, an unpretentious town of 7,600 people in southern Bergen County.

Wood-Ridge is a densely settled community and the development will cover 80 acres, prompting the question: Where will they put it? The answer: in an old parking lot, a vast expanse of rutted asphalt and weeds used now to store tractor trailers.

In World War II the lot served an adjacent factory, the Curtiss-Wright aeronautical plant that made engines for B-29 bombers, including the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The factory was immense, a single building under a roof that spread over 32 acres. The workforce included many women, Rosie the Riveters who worked in shifts around the clock.

The building continues in use today, in seemingly good repair, serving mostly as a warehouse for companies like Springfield Precision Instruments, which makes thermometers, and DeLonghi, an Italian manufacturer of appliances and housewares.

The building will remain in use. In fact, it is to be expanded, vertically, with additional structures added atop the roof, which was built of concrete, super-strong to withstand enemy attack.

Celebrity designer

Given the history of the place, the new development, whose first phase has just won borough approval, might seem strange. Its chief designer is a hotshot, internationally celebrated architect, Andres Duany, whose home base is in Miami.

He and his partner and wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, met as undergraduates at Princeton’s school of architecture and went on to study together at Yale. They made their reputations 25 years ago with a community called Seaside, in Florida’s northwestern Panhandle.

It did not look like anything built in America since the 19th century. It looked, in fact, like a set for the play “Our Town,” with Victorian houses close together, lots of gingerbread and picket fences and front porches, with shallow front yards and back yards, rear-facing garages reached through alleys. Seaside was a commercial and aesthetic success, visited by development professionals looking for the Next Big Thing.

Five years ago the Curtiss-Wright property and some additional land, 152 acres in all, were sold to a New York-based developer, Rubin Schron, for $51 million. He saw an opportunity to build something more interesting than the usual suburban development. He and Ralph Zucker, president of a Schron subsidiary called Somerset Development, contacted Andres Duany, who came to the site and was captivated. What did he see in this industrial relic?

First thing he saw was the rail line that ran along the western edge of the tract. This was NJ Transit’s Bergen Line, which carried commuters from Northwest Bergen to the PATH terminal in Hoboken, where they boarded trains to Lower Manhattan. The Bergen Line has since been connected as well to the new Secaucus Junction rail transfer station, providing a ride to Midtown Manhattan. The line had stations in Garfield, north of Wood-Ridge, and in Rutherford, south of it, but none in Wood-Ridge.

Duany started with that. He would build a station in Wood-Ridge, like the historic Mission-style station in Ridgewood farther north, but better, he said, across the tracks from a new town center, which would have a ceremonial tower and an open plaza for public events. There would be a variety of homes, all within walking distance of the station and town center, which would have stores and offices.

Local input

Duany did not impose designs on a community, take it or leave it. His method was instead to solicit residents’ input and to modify plans accordingly, on the spot, in a process called a charrette, an intensive, collaborative architectural effort. So he rented a meeting room at a local hotel for a week and, with the assistance of Ralph Rosenberg and Susan DiGiacomo, Hasbrouck Heights architects, he presented his concepts and invited comment.

Some 150 residents showed up, and they had lots of ideas. As they considered town houses or a parking garage or street-lighting fixtures, the planners would draw pictures showing how these amenities would look, prompting further comment, leading to revised drawings.

The plan that was ultimately reached envisions 737 residential units, increasing the borough’s population by a third. The development, on 80 acres, will be called Wesmont Station. It will include a new public middle school, two baseball fields, a running track, and a field for football and soccer. The school, to be built by the developer, will be financed with property taxes paid by Wesmont Station. The athletic facilities and rail station will be provided free of charge to the borough.

There will be paths for pedestrians and bicyclists, with bridges over roadways. Cars will be parked in communal underground garages or, as in Seaside, in backyard family garages that drivers will reach through alleys.

Of the residential units, 217 will be single-family houses, 135 rental apartments, 131 condos, 77 condos for seniors, 166 town houses and 11 work-live spaces for artists and craftsmen. Prices and rents have not been announced, nor can I find any mention of state-required affordable housing.

However, the developer is planning a memorial at the town center to the 6,000 Rosie the Riveters who worked at Curtiss-Wright, with a bronze statue of Rosie as indelibly conceived by Norman Rockwell in a Saturday Evening Post cover in 1943.

She is no sylph, this Rosie, a saucy young woman whose hair is red and curly, nose snub. Her blue denim shirt sleeves are rolled up, revealing ample biceps. She is sitting, chomping on a sandwich held in left hand, the right cradling a three-foot riveting gun. One foot is solidly planted on something. When you look close, you can see it is a battered book: “Mein Kampf,” by Adolf Hitler.

By Bob Fernandez
Inquirer Staff Writer

Home builder Toll Bros. Inc. yesterday reported a soaring fourth-quarter profit - up 72 percent to $310 million - but warned of a slowing housing market.

The Horsham company forecast flat to modest profit growth in 2006, saying it expects to earn between $810 million and $890 million. In fiscal 2005, which ended Oct. 31, the company’s profit almost doubled to $806 million.

Toll Bros. plans to open 143 subdivisions in the United States in 2006, providing a pipeline of new homes as its older subdivisions have sold out. Toll controls 83,000 lots, a five- or six-year supply. The company also is selling units in high-rise condo buildings in Hoboken, N.J., and Florida.

For the fourth quarter, Toll’s revenue jumped 40 percent, to $2 billion. Per-share earnings rose to $1.84 from $1.11 in last year’s fourth quarter.

Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer, said the housing market should return to more normal levels of growth - or those seen between 1994 and mid-2003 - in 2006.

“We look to the future with cautious optimism,” he said in a statement. “We believe demand for our luxury homes relies, in large measure, on consumer confidence, which has suffered among our clientele.”

Toll executives have said that the three Gulf Coast hurricanes in late summer, and the resulting spike in oil prices, shook consumer confidence, leading to slower traffic through its models.

While the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose in November, it still was below the levels of last summer, before the storms.

Rising interest rates also are starting to affect the housing market. The Federal Reserve has raised short-term interest rates 12 times in the last 18 months. As a result, the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 6.41 percent yesterday, compared with an average of 5.83 percent in December 2004, according to mortgage tracker HSH Associates, of Pompton Plains, N.J.

Robert Toll said in a conference call with analysts that sales activity varied by region - with the Philadelphia suburbs being a “fair” market. He said the Washington area had suffered with speculators pulling out of the market.

Toll shares rose $1.25, or 3.6 percent, to $35.55 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s stock has traded between $33.75 and $58.67 in the last year.