A panel of veteran real estate experts offered their views on the state of New Jersey’s office, industrial and multi-family housing marketplaces and educated the audience on growing trends and offered predictions for the coming year. Hundreds of guests from the commercial real estate industry were on hand for the event which included panelists Matt Campbell, Director of Land Acquisition, Toll Brothers; Ian Christ, Managing Director, Prudential Real Estate; Jeff Milanaik, Partner, Northeast Region, Bridge Industrial; Michael Pembroke, COO, Russo Development; Ryan Sanzari, President, Alfred Sanzari Enterprises; Jonathan Schultz, Managing Principal, Onyx Equities.
“We were fortunate to have this panel whose expertise and experience spans many decades in the industry” commented IOREBA President John Johnson who served as panel moderator.
The panelists agreed that that the past 2 years have been a transformative time for the CRE industry and staying ahead of trends is key. They agreed that the market continues to show dominance for certain asset classes and Covid-19 continues to loom over others and that trends that developed during the pandemic are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Despite the ongoing pandemic-related challenges, opportunities exist for NJ’s CRE industry. Demand for logistics, industrial, data centers, life sciences and multi-family developments has been extremely strong. The industrial section is the hottest sector dominating the others. The question is are these areas getting overheated and overvalued? Time will tell. Industrial space in the Meadowlands, for example, recently hit $28 per square foot noted Jeff Milanaik, Partner, Northeast Region, Bridge Industrial LLC.
Other key takeaways included opinions from panelists such as Jonathan Schultz of Onyx Equities who suggested ways to lure employees back to the office will depend on creating contemporary amenities and offering hospitality features in todays office buildings.
New Jersey continues to undergo a repositioning of its many corporate campuses that are becoming functionally obsolete with archaic zoning in place. Pressure is mounting to design a new type of office by creating features that will entice companies back. Ryan Sanzari of Alfred Sanzari Enterprises is optimistic on Class-A office building leasing and has seen an uptick in activity to almost at pre-pandemic levels.
Developers are continuing to reposition office buildings into multi-family housing with live-work-play amenities with shopping nearby that will appeal to the community and corporations. Multi-family vacancy rates are below 1.5%. Panelist Michael Pembroke of Russo Development and Matt Campbell of Toll Brothers agreed that collaboration between development companies will be necessary in todays tight market to move forward.
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