BRUNELLI: In cities like Newark and
Paterson, for example?
BOUGHTON: Paterson particularly.
WINTERS: Well I think the urban areas
have a few things in play that affect the
retailer’s decision. Is the urban area
large enough to support retail and is
there parking? Are people from outside
the urban area going to come to this
area? Can I park? Are they safe, do
they feel safe coming there?
And I think the answer to a lot of those
questions is no. For example, I live in the
Asbury Park area and many people are
just not interested in visiting the area.
Some will visit on Friday and Saturday
night and have dinner in a restaurant
on a particular street. But if they have
to park a block or two away they’re not
going. So I think that every urban area is
going to be taken as an separate entity
and be evaluated individually.
BRUNELLI: On a block-by-block by basis?
WINTERS: Unfortunately, yes.
BRUNELLI: How can we redevelop our
cities with the negativity that’s involved with
eminent domain and how does that affect the
actual viability of redeveloping our urban areas
when in most cases there’s an assemblage of
small lots that has to be completed before you
can create a significant mixed-use project?
SEMERARO: That’s really difficult
for developers that we deal with.
Whenever you’re talking urban redevelopment you have to assemble
properties no matter how small your
project is.
Also, if the city or the town is not willing to help you with eminent domain,
a lot of times it’s just leverage on the
person to make the deal. But you have
people that want to hold out and they
think that their little quarter acre lot is
worth $1 million. If that’s the last quarter acre that you need of 10 acres, the
developer might be squeezed to make
that deal. But that’s a very difficult
hurdle for a developer to get over.
However, while they’re making those
deals, a lot of times they don’t know
of all the environmental effects. They
don’t know about all the infrastructure
upgrades they have to do. So it’s really
a gamble for the developer. I mean
we could do a certain amount of due
diligence but, developers don’t want to
pay for all that due diligence if they don’t
even have the property under control.
I think that since it is so difficult to get
approvals in New Jersey, the small and
medium-sized developers are going to
be finding it difficult to do their development projects unless they’re going with
smaller development projects.
AMBROSI: I agree completely. We’ve
been involved in a lot of designated
developer projects and I have to say
the majority of them never work out.
We’ve actually just burned money on
them because although you have the
power of eminent domain and you
have the towns behind you, there’s
always some creative lawyer who
gets in there and says you’re not taking my property. You wind up getting
tied up court for years.
We are starting to shy away from
those now. We’re much better off
going in and trying to buy, just buy the
land and then go to the town and get
a designated developer master plan
as opposed to a zoning change where
you can create your own zoning.
SEMERARO: But a lot of the larger
cities have their redevelopment agencies and they’re actually assembling
the properties themselves and they’re
doing environmental investigations
themselves… When they package that
with the developer that is really the best
way to do urban redevelopment. Also,
the cities are getting a lot smarter. In
Newark the city is phenomenal with
respect to redevelopment and knowing
what has to get done.—RENJ
SPONSOR PROFILES
Robert J. Ambrosi is
president and founder
of ARC Properties, Inc.
He has more than 30
years of experience in
the acquisition, development and management of real estate
projects.
Melissa Boughton is
senior vice president,
store development for
retailer The Children’s
Place. She joined the
company in 2007 as the
vice president of real
estate. She has been
in the retail industry for
more than 20 years.
Richard J. Brunelli is
president of RJ Brunelli
& Company Inc. He
founded the brokerage
firm 30 years ago and
has built it into one of
the state’s leading retail
real estate specialists.
Harvey Gutman is a
principal of Brookside
Advisors LLC, which
focuses on retail consulting and real estate
development. A former
Pathmark executive,
he has spent his entire
three-plus decade career in retail and real
estate development.
Michael A. Semeraro,
Jr., P.E., is a principal of
Langan Engineering &
Environmental Services.
His more than 29 years
experience has featured
a diversity of land development projects.
Steven K. Winters,
joined Fameco Real
Estate, L.P. as a sales
associate in 2008. In
more than 16 years in
the business, he has
completed more than
400 deals worth in
excess of $500 million.
