skyl4rk wrote:
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JcDevil wrote:
Van Vorst Park area has a strong low-rise character, while Columbus Blvd is ugly and wouldn't be hurt by a high-rise.

While I agree with most of your post - this part irked me. It's already ugly so do whatever the F&*% you want to it? I walk down CCB every day and I was ecstatic when Porta put windows in - it made the block feel so much less rapey. I'll be happy if that surface parking lot disappears, too - but it completely depends on what goes in on the ground floor. Case in point - the newer building on the northwest corner of Barrow and Wayne. Only 4 stories, but the entire ground floor is parking. Don't care how many shrubs you put in front of it - it's deadspace.

Right now, I have a 7-story building going up behind my 3-story row house in Harsimus Cove that will basically cast a shadow over my entire house and I can forget having any plants growing in my back yard ever again. I'm semi-devastated but there's nothing do be done about it now. 18 stories going up in a neighborhood like VVP makes my heart sink.

Monroe wrote:
Labor and benefit costs are the driver here, with a strong union component. Since the last fare hike was in 2010, and this will be for 2016, it's about a 1.5%/year raise in costs over that time.

Does anyone think that salaries and benefits (especially health benefits for NJ Transit employees) hasn't raised 1.5%/year over that time?

JGJDNYCJC wrote:
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devilsadvocate wrote:

I love liberals. If wealthy white people don't want to subsidize low income housing for the sort of people that will destroy the neighborhood and ultimately riot as in Baltimore and Ferguson, they are horrible racists and part of the problem. However, if the same white people move into black neighborhoods, they are horrible gentrifiers and also part of the problem. Heads I win, tails you lose.

By the way, this issue is needlessly racialized for political reasons. Truthfully, no one cares if a black Yale law or med or HBS grad moves in next door. However, this isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about public housing and WHOEVER lives there - whether white, black, Hispanic, etc. is going to be problematic. However, they are disproportionately black and Hispanic, so we can pretend that this is a racial issue and not a class one.

This.

dtjcview wrote:
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AMo wrote:
Dear Neighbors:

A developer has proposed a gargantuan, 18 story building for the corner of Barrow and Christopher Columbus. (Only seven stories are currently allowed.) This building will contain approximately 143 units (probably rental) and a mere 56 parking spaces. It will be almost three times taller than any building along Columbus west of Grove Street. If built, this project will fundamentally change the character of Christopher Columbus Drive and Van Vorst Park, clog our already crowded streets with more traffic, and make our difficult parking situation untenable. Moreover, it will set a dangerous precedent going forward.

You can have your voice heard by coming to the Barrow Mansion on Tuesday, May19th at 7:00 p.m. when the developer makes its presentation. Councilwoman Candice Osborne will be there to take your questions and hear your concerns.

Thanks,
Aaron and Liz Morrill

None eat pizza?

(Like most on this forum I have trouble taking you guys seriously.)

AMo wrote:
Dear Neighbors:

A developer has proposed a gargantuan, 18 story building for the corner of Barrow and Christopher Columbus. (Only seven stories are currently allowed.) This building will contain approximately 143 units (probably rental) and a mere 56 parking spaces. It will be almost three times taller than any building along Columbus west of Grove Street. If built, this project will fundamentally change the character of Christopher Columbus Drive and Van Vorst Park, clog our already crowded streets with more traffic, and make our difficult parking situation untenable. Moreover, it will set a dangerous precedent going forward.

You can have your voice heard by coming to the Barrow Mansion on Tuesday, May19th at 7:00 p.m. when the developer makes its presentation. Councilwoman Candice Osborne will be there to take your questions and hear your concerns.

Thanks,
Aaron and Liz Morrill

Monroe wrote:
Actually news reports all week have been focusing on the increase of shootings in NY under the watch of Mayor DeBlasio, and in nearby Newark it's at such a crisis level Mayor Baraka will be setting up shop on different hot spot streets.

And where I hang in BeLa recently there have been a spate of shootings, including a guy getting whacked on Pacific followed by another shooting in a nearby park, and another multiple shooting a few blocks west.

bodhipooh wrote:
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hero69 wrote:
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bodhipooh wrote:
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nemobeatz wrote:
The Lafayette hood has also seen a pretty large influx of young couples, many from Brooklyn. The housing stock is ridiculously scarce though atm, I suspect many are sitting on their properties and waiting. Commute into downtown Manhattan from the LSP lightrail is about 30-35 min.

After 8 years in the BeLa neighborhood, I 100% concur with this. Tons of families are sitting on properties that are dilapidated and some are one storm away from collapsing. There are some really neat houses, too. I honestly feel like some old timers are holding on to properties with false hopes of a major windfall, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon. The best bet was 10 years ago, as The Foundry came online and there was a palpable excitement about gentrification and the area turning a corner. Alas, the economy crashed, and by the time things started to improve, the DTJC area was already blowing up with new buildings coming online at the rate of 2 or 3 per year. Unfortunately, the light rail connection adds enough time, hassle and money to act as a deterrent for would be renters and buyers. But, I really like the area and I hope it does well. I have met a ton of people that are really great, and the few that have managed to buy properties and are fixing them up will likely see a good return on their investment in 10 - 20 years.

PS - I know of a property on Monitor that a few years ago sold for 17K (not a typo and, given the conditions, probably was worth less) but with a lot of creativity, effort and money, it could easily be turned into a GREAT home.

i honestly, i think many of the people sitting on their homes are smart...where else are they gonna move to? bayonne, paterson, newark, florida...its not like one is gonna make a killing in bela, astor...

I think you missed my point. The point is not whether or not they would make a killing. The point is that they could make some money by selling. Instead, some of them REALLY believe they can get a million dollar from some investor. I remember talking to someone who lived in a rather run down place, and when we got to the conversation of selling, etc, he straight up told me he wanted one million dollars to leave his place, and that he was waiting for someone to come knocking on his door with that kind of offer. People have short memories but, not too long ago, people were paying silly money for properties/land with this crazy belief that they could "flip" a property for instant riches. All of this was encouraged by all those reality TV shows showing professionals flipping properties all over the US. Of course, as with the liars loans, it was all an unsustainable pipe dream. But, you know what they say... hope is the last thing to die. You may find it hard to believe, but some people in BeLa really think they are sitting on a lottery ticket, and they are waiting until theirs gets called.

greenville wrote:
Good luck if you do, foreclosures are hot down here. The properties that come in the market last about a week before their under contract do to a shortage of rental property.

bodhipooh wrote:
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nemobeatz wrote:
The Lafayette hood has also seen a pretty large influx of young couples, many from Brooklyn. The housing stock is ridiculously scarce though atm, I suspect many are sitting on their properties and waiting. Commute into downtown Manhattan from the LSP lightrail is about 30-35 min.

After 8 years in the BeLa neighborhood, I 100% concur with this. Tons of families are sitting on properties that are dilapidated and some are one storm away from collapsing. There are some really neat houses, too. I honestly feel like some old timers are holding on to properties with false hopes of a major windfall, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon. The best bet was 10 years ago, as The Foundry came online and there was a palpable excitement about gentrification and the area turning a corner. Alas, the economy crashed, and by the time things started to improve, the DTJC area was already blowing up with new buildings coming online at the rate of 2 or 3 per year. Unfortunately, the light rail connection adds enough time, hassle and money to act as a deterrent for would be renters and buyers. But, I really like the area and I hope it does well. I have met a ton of people that are really great, and the few that have managed to buy properties and are fixing them up will likely see a good return on their investment in 10 - 20 years.

PS - I know of a property on Monitor that a few years ago sold for 17K (not a typo and, given the conditions, probably was worth less) but with a lot of creativity, effort and money, it could easily be turned into a GREAT home.

dmellonworth wrote:
There are 2 that I am aware of... I am guessing this was the one at 3rd and Jackson. The other is on Newark where Hoboken Vine is.

bodhipooh wrote:
Was the event well attended in the evening? I stopped in around 4 PM and it was just a few people there. The setup was nice and, overall, it felt like a fun way to spend an early evening gathered with some friends while having a beer and some food outside, but I couldn't help think that the attendance was poor. Hopefully it picked up later into the evening.

kencares wrote:
It's the same story with a lot of businesses around here, minus the nail chemicals, "Asian Food" on 440, the back half of most of the restaurants in town, most contractors, particularly Dixon Leasing. The state just turns a blind eye towards most of it.

user1111 wrote:
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered emergency measures on Sunday to combat the wage theft and health hazards faced by the thousands of people who work in New York State?s nail salon industry.

Effective immediately, he said in a statement, a new, multiagency task force will conduct salon-by-salon investigations, institute new rules that salons must follow to protect manicurists from the potentially dangerous chemicals found in nail products, and begin a six-language education campaign to inform them of their rights.

Nail salons that do not comply with orders to pay workers back wages, or are unlicensed, will be shut down. The new rules come in response to a New York Times investigation of nail salons ? first published online last week ? that detailed the widespread exploitation of manicurists, many of whom have illnesses that some scientists and health advocates say are caused by the chemicals with which they work.

Story

devilsadvocate wrote:
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user1111 wrote:
whoa, WTF just came back in from my morning run and saw a wholefood van on Ocean and Wade... They now deliver.

I would be very annoyed if WF decided to open their first JC location in freakin' Greenville.

ianmac47 wrote:
Not to disappoint NJ Transit riders, but building an Amtrak tunnel is great for Amtrak riders who desperately need more high speed service in and out of NYC, but the Amtrak tunnel will have fewer than half as many local commuter trains than ARC. This was supposed to have been the third rail tunnel built after ARC, not an ARC replacement.

fat-ass-bike wrote:
We'll it appears to be a good location with only legal beans and claude cafe nearby - Hopefully it doesn't affect their trade but a concern is where are the nearest public restrooms or are we going to drive the gas station nuts or the cafe's by running into their restrooms.

Will the trucks get together and provide trash cans that get removed at the end of the night?

Monroe wrote:
Great job by Obama, let's hope NY doesn't try and screw NJ again by not being a true partner in the project.

TonyTwoPoops wrote:
I have a feeling the ten people bitching about food trucks going away on JClist will have little to no effect on the restaurants that chose to voice their TOTALLY VALID complaints about the food court that was opening up twice a week. I occupied the farmers market as much as the restaurants and I would rather lose the farmers markets food trucks than lose the restaurants that actually made the effort to set up shop downtown. I don't know how anyone who has lived here more than a couple of years can be so quick to turn on restaurants that decided to invest in this area when we had very little to start with.

There is such a sense of entitlement coming across in these posts. If I had a business I busted my ass for I would be fighting for it too. Everyone complains about how long it takes to open a business here but when a brick and mortar store actually tries to- gee I don't know stay in business? - you can't wait to get your pitchforks over someone taking away your empanadas. A local business doesn't exist solely to cater to everyone's individual needs- they are trying to run a business and make a living too.

I've never seen so many grown adults be deliberately obtuse over the differences between food trucks and running an actual restaurant. If anything this entire thread has made me want to go to Two Boots every day. I can't wait to see how long everyone's "boycott" lasts.

user1111 wrote:
The Auditor | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Just how much has state Senate President Stephen Sweeney changed his stance on expanding casino gaming to north Jersey?

Enough, apparently, to prompt the family of Paul Fireman, who wants to build a mega casino in Jersey City, to donate to his campaign fund.

Fireman's wife, son and daughter-in-law each donated $2,600 to Sweeney's (D-Gloucester) reelection fund in March, campaign finance records show.

Until last year, Sweeney had long opposed allowing casinos outside of Atlantic City. But the collapse of the casino industry there caused him to rethink his position. Instead, Sweeney has said he's open to allowing a couple casinos in northern New Jersey, if they provide hundreds of millions of dollars a year to help redevelop Atlantic City.

"I'm not dead-set against it," Sweeney said. "I didn't announce that we needed to do casinos in northern new Jersey because of Paul Fireman or anyone else. Atlantic City needs help. I was part of the five-year deal with the governor to fix Atlantic City. You see it's not working that well."

To make that happen, voters would need to approve a constitutional amendment. The Legislature could put that on the ballot this year with a three-fifths majority vote, though Sweeney said he's not sure he would want it in what's expected to be a low-turnout November election.

"We've got to figure out when we're going to do it. Because the reality is we're going to have a low-turnout election. So do you do it this year or next year?" Sweeney said.

The Firemans' support of Sweeney does, however, give ammunition to Atlantic County Republicans, who this year are trying to oust Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo (D-Atlantic), a Sweeney ally. Mazzeo is the Assembly sponsor of measures championed by Sweeney to revive the resort.

Story

tommyc_37 wrote:
Prices are artificially inflated due to an extremely low quantity of inventory for purchase, as somebody else noted earlier. There are bidding wars on mediocre properties. There really is very low inventory, for sale. Does anybody know why there is such a reluctance to build condos in these new high rises, as opposed to making them rentals? There is obviously ridiculous demand for condos.

vindication15 wrote:
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jcwalkingman wrote:
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Dolomiti wrote:
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When the supply of rental units increases that dramatically, that increases competition among owners of rental units.

Aren't you forgetting something? Y'know, it's on the tip of my tongue, from that first week in Microecon 101, it's... it's... Oh yeah. It's demand.

Keeping in mind that no one has a crystal ball:

Rental prices are increasing all along the Gold Coast. As more supply comes onto the market, prices may drop a little bit, but they might not. It depends heavily on how many people want to rent those units.

While it is possible that some buildings will sell instead of rent, that kind of shift is not trivial and is not fast, especially in larger buildings. Condo conversions take at least 2 years, lots of paperwork, and dealing with recalcitrant tenants. I.e. We are not going to wake up one fine Tuesday morning with 50,000 new condos for sale in DTJC.

Even if that impossible scenario did happen, the market for condos is pretty healthy too. Demand is high right now for condo sales, which means the market probably can absorb a big increase in supply without killing condo prices.

LOL are you telling me you think there will be a five-fold surge in demand over last year? the absorption rate for the type of product (luxury apartments) that make up the tidal wave of new units coming online downtown in the next 12 months was roughly 65 units/month during peak season last year (there will be over 4200 new luxury units coming online downtown in the next 12 months)

At the pace at the peak of last year (some of which was made up of pent-up demand that has largely been satisfied), it would take about 64 months - more than 5 years - to absorb all those units (and that doesn't even factor in the contribution of several thousand more units coming online the following 2 years). Job growth in New York City is forecast to be only 2.3% higher this year than last according to the BLS, so any surge in demand in downtown JC would need to come from people who already work in the NYC area and are simply moving out of their parents' house or otherwise relocating from other presumably nearby zipcodes.

....and I wasn't referring in any way to condo conversions in my previous post. When I spoke about more condo units coming online, I was referring to investors who own units in Trump, Grove Pointe, Gull's Cove, etc. dumping their units onto the market to avoid losing money since net effective rents are likely to fall.

One more thing...demand in downtown JC is NOT high right now - in fact, it is completely the opposite - terribly low. Prices are high right now because there are so few units on the market. How many units have sold in The Gannon so far? The Oakman will add another 160. These two buildings alone will effectively more than double the number of units for sale downtown in the coming months. We have historically low interest rates right now, and a likely increase in interest rates will reduce buying power. Additionally, foreign capital is now starting to divert from US real estate investment to European and South American real estate because of the strength of the dollar, which means a reduced pool of buyers in the JC market.

What? These are the what will increase demand in both rentals & condos - at least in the luxury high rise department:

1) WTC filling up
2) Manhattan increase in jobs (you mentioned this)
3) Increase in rental and property values in Manhattan (you did not mention this) which will drive people to DTJC
4) Hoboken price out
5) People in nearby NJ cities who want a nightlife
6) Those in nearby JC neighborhoods who want to live closer to Manhattan and are willing to pay more - those in Heights for example

You mentioned the gannon. I went to the website and can't even see availability - only the ability to join a mailing list..is this building even done? Oakman is not online so how do we even judge this?

We should look at recent rentals and recent condo sales. They are high, very high in the DTJC luxury high rise market but still 50% off from Manhattan Proper. DTJC will rise....and there is still money to be made.

I also do not see an influx of condo owners dumping their units onto the market before prices fall.....the buildings you mention have less than 10 units per building on the market right now. inventory is extraordinarily low. Are we talking about DTJC here?

ianmac47 wrote:
One of the biggest problems with the current monorail is that it wasn't designed for cold weather operation. For some reason nobody thought this would be a problem. When it first opened the switches would freeze and I think even the computers would crash in the cold.

bodhipooh wrote:
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PotStirJC wrote:
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bodhipooh wrote:
Forget the JFK AirTrain. They should be consulting with Disney. The Disney World monorail is an incredibly smooth ride, runs around the clock, every day, and you don't hear about all these issues. They have had VERY FEW incidents over the 40+ years it has been in existence. How is it that the PA can come up with such a piss poor system using a concept and technology that is already established??

something called winter.

What do other countries that experience winters do? Or, are you so dense that you think that no other country in the world with bitter winters is using monorails??

Dolomiti wrote:
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hero69 wrote:
has fulop made any progress in solving/mitigating the issue with flooding in jersey city..or is he more focused on keeping chains out of dtjc

Yes.

There are some preliminary plans to add seawalls for JC and Hoboken. It'd cost $2 billion, so it must include federal money. However, don't expect any solutions any time soon, it takes years just to get approval, and years to build.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... wntown_from_flooding.html