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actually it is deductible on federal tax return - this has been discussed here and there many times. rule of thumb - irs considers them as re taxes in private rulings. to forstall confusion, all that is necessary - is to obtain a letter from irs, stating this. which is usually done by condo association. last i talked to my lawer - the developer is working to obtain one.
on the other hand it might not really matter that much for those caught by alt min tax - only very small portion of re becomes deductible, based on your private calc. it can be as small as 30%. you'll have to check with accountant.

actually the numbers are very healthy for preconstruction.
as far as crowding - look at manhattan's east side : from 20's thru ues - its' all hi-rises and plenty of office space on lex, yet 1 main subway line :4/5/6. jc downtown is nowhere near that density. actually, at this point hoboken has higher density of population then newport , believe it or not. and if you were in newport or near exchange pl every day - it does not have crowds either.
about path, though i agree - that worries me somewhat. but PA states that ridership was much higher earlier , so they can handle it.
potholes are jc province - chances are with more affluent dwellers roads will improve. at least closer to waterfront.
rebuilding ramps to holland tunnel already started: 15 year project.

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new buildings are selling in hoboken and in jc. you can check out kannekt bs - granted, there's a lot of fluff posted there, but there's enough info, if you're willing to sift thru.
currently trump is selling the 1st building : in 1 month 30% sold. also shore club north sold 135 out of 221 units since july. A sales slowed and mandalay's are in a total slump, but it's an older and much less attractive building.
so currently there are 4 hi-rises competing, not including portofino and shoreclub south, both of which sold out quite some time ago.
there's only 2 rentals being build at the moment off waterfront - columbus and grove point. they're pricing grove point condo's same as condo A (wonder who'll fall for that...)
2nd trump might be a rental and also 2nd 77 hudson - but that is at least 5 years in the making. hi-rise rental market is very healthy in jc - buildings are at very high occupancy and rents are steadily rising. the only other rental coming up soon is aqua in newport - contruction starting in 2008. that one will have knock out views, together with knock out prices. if lefrak does not fret, who'll rent, neither do i.
oh, and by the way - check out W condo's thread on kannekt, some astounding numbers quoted there....

every tax abatement agreement is diff, but shoreclub has a 1st step up after 6 years - so that locks the rate at quoted 1.65% for 6 years. last i saw posts that jc re taxes are rising. does 5.22% rate reflect that? how long do you think it'll stay at that level? if local taxes are rising at a faster rate, very soon tax-abated rate will become lower, then effective 'equalised' rate, no? if you cancel at the end of 1st year - you're loosing this protection. i would not trust jc to keep effective rates at the same level. raising the nominal rate or 'equalised rate' is always a high possibility.

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and you're in a comfortable majority here - nice a capella. may be that's why i enjoy being a contrarian.
i certainly do not object to diff. opinions. so long as it is done in a civil dialogue . i can express myself much more candidly - and that is my tendency;), but i do try to check it.
in my personal opinion lefrak single handedly started the revitalization of jc - to deny that is kinda short-sighted.
yes, it could've been done better ,etc. but it is what it is and it's getting better with each new building. most of manhattan is quite ugly, but people live there not for beauty ... and now, that development of waterfront really took off - it's so-o much prettier. seems like they're at least making an effort. i was stunned by goldman getting koolhaas! that's like a cherry on a cake;). but plenty of people hate him too...
so 'the low-risers' will get their gull's cove and liberty north and 'the hi-risers' get the close waterfront. i am willing to visit the whole foods whereever it is ;).

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and you're so-o paranoid - feels almost like nwa board...(giggles).
why do some people get so bend out of shape, when i say, i prefer newport to ph? that i LIKE living in hi-rises (with great view of downtown and the bay)? oh, boy - i can't resist answering, i admit. you need to raise cricket - say newport is sterile - he'll be right up ....
yah-yah! i LOVE ellipse and metropolitan, but i love miami brikell even better! any suggestions, where i should scram next? need i be guessing? miami, of course...
it's undeniable that jc waterfront is getting dominated by hi-rises. some of you hate it, i happen to like it. 10 hi-rises = 10K people coming next - in addition to 20K already living in hi-rises and loving it....what next, you'll be hating and trying to shut up all of them? or you hope, they'll never dare to speak up or show up here?
plenty of nasty posters here all the time, what , i'm too much compared to that? to-o corporate clean for your downtown buds? to-o multicultural?

you xenophobic, chickadee?

'cause i'm STITCH - and there will be more like me, then like you soon. get ready, we'll swarm you.

actually newport is so-o self contained - that we don't want much traffic on our 2-3 'round the square blocks - you'll have to come by path. i actually like it much better then ph and hoboken combined (naturally, since this is where i live). once we have a park up north, things will be very nice (not to mention a gourmet grocer and korean style deli to open soon). it's easy to critisize. trump built HIS buildings flush with street, so did athena and even new east of mandalay dev will be like that, on a tiny, collapsing into the water, plot... last i heard goldman is sticking another hi-rise in ...so lets not get stuck on newport...plenty of other devs are doing much worse. all developers are greedy...
my take - liberty north will be very suburban style and QUITE more isolated too. not to MY liking, but i am sure many people will be attracted to it. i just love the future 3 curved towers in the sky - that's a dream...for the whole metro area. THEY will be getting whole foods.... - i'm green with envy. still better, then driving to montclair or edgewater.

actually shop rite is laying in organics too...
newport's liquor shop has a very nice wine,etc selection . they'll order for you whatever you want too(it's in east chase building, around the corner on newport parkway).
and when you get a mixed wine-only box (12 bottles) - you get a 10% (?)discount. they deliver too. i think it's the best local wine shop.

oh, but he probably meant the old fortress in queens: THE lefrak city....it looms over the highway like a bad dream...

'eighth office tower in Newport City in New Jersey '.
i love that ...'newport CITY'....
where can they put it ? any idea?

here's some detail from census 2000 by zip from http://www.hometownlocator.com
a lot has changed since, but at least that's smth to chew on
of these 3 newport has just towers, though only 1 condo.
the diff is not large, but visible.
i'd say applied to hi-rise jc waterfront, it will increase still in the next 5 years.

hoboken:

$200,000 or more 1,316 6.8 %
Avg HH Income of HHs < $200k 65,236
Avg HH Income of HHs $200k or more 350,589
--------------------
jersey city - zip 07302 (ph,exchange pl, pad, hp)

$200,000 or more 581 4.1 %
Avg HH Income of HHs < $200k 52,196
Avg HH Income of HHs $200k or more 362,269

----------------------------
jc -07310 (newport and south of wash,north of 2st))

$200,000 or more 325 10.2 %
Avg HH Income of HHs < $200k 72,982
Avg HH Income of HHs $200k or more 357,452

get a job with GS...
"all company employees have passes that allow them to ride the ferry free during the non-rush-hour part of the day -- from mid-morning to 4:30 p.m. In exchange, the ferry operator does not pay any docking charges."

but this IS really steep...
we lost water taxi service at newport , people still are interested, but there's some problem with 'waterways' too, they won't restart it.

found a lo-ong article in wired:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.06/koolhaas_pr.html
and upcoming exhibition in moma
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2006/cctv.html

here's his company - with all the projects
http://www.oma.nl/
as far as the name, based on this info:
http://static.unilang.org/resources/a ... t_dutchpronunciation.html
it's a long 'o' like in lord (without r of course)
and a long 'a' like in bath.
since both vowels are long - it looks like a double stress: like 2 words connected.
but may be we got some specialists to verify that?

"we need to import outside cool. "
yeh! we gonna have a coolhaus soon
notice: preserving the facade (ye-ek!) is no longer a req. - they're open to other suggestions ;).

that's it! we've made it fellas! JC is on the map...i am speachless, really! first coach:) - next day koolhaas...i think i'm numb from excitement....i not moving anywhere, i'm sitting, watching !

the 3 buildings : one south of doubletree, 2 north are Monaco, San Remo 1 and 2. Approved i think already - part of DoubleTree expansion by developer. jerseycityportal has some articles on them.

i think, it's great news. i worked for both, db and citi, might even chance into some former co-workers...
it's not just IT - bankers trust (bought by DB) had investment bankers here in exchange pl - believe it or not.
who citi will bring here, i wonder? - it's the salomon division operations that was in shearson cube that they sold across the river.
so for citi - it's probably operations that will be coming, they do need the tops in wiring 'n cooling. and true, most people will be earning quite above 100k - and walking around 'n eating and might even buy a t-shirt or too :) in da mall...
and with all the buildings coming on line - i wouldn't be surprised, if they moved here too. what a bliss it was - i actually walked to work from newport for a few years... now, THAT's living!

if you can't get this nyt article, here's some points from it:
sedums grow here in about seven inches of a lightweight soil medium ? 83 percent expanded shale, 17 percent compost ? that does not strain the weight-bearing capacity of the roof.
.., he hired a structural engineer who calculated how much weight the roof could support. The answer was 35 pounds per square foot, dry weight, or 60 pounds per square foot, if saturated with rain. ..That calculation limited Mr. Puchkoff?s green roof to no more than eight inches of soil.
He sealed the roof with a combination of polyethylene and woven polyester from the Andek Corporation, whose products he had used over the years to seal custom-built bathtubs. (Cost: $1,500, including labor.)
Then he was ready to install the four-layered system he chose from American Hydrotech
The layers consist of a five-millimeter polyethylene membrane that keeps roots from penetrating the roof; then a spongy moisture retention layer, which absorbs any water that overflows the next layer of ?Floradrains,? from a German company named ZinCo. These are cup-like plastic units that look like upside-down egg cartons; when laid together, they hold water that seeps down through the layer of soil, which is laid over a filter that prevents sifting and clogging of the drains.
The multilayered system establishes not only a reservoir of water for plants, but also a backup supply, held by the moisture retention sponge, which evaporates slowly, in dry times, to moisten plant roots.
At the final stage, drip tubes are laid down on top of the soil filter, before the soil medium is spread. These drip lines, plus some early top-watering, supplied water to the young plants ? which arrived as plugs with three-inch roots, and were planted eight inches apart ? until they were well-established. (The Hydrotech system cost $3,800, plus $800 labor.)
The arrival of 2,400 pounds of soil ($2,000), from Laurel Valley Soils, a company based in Avondale, Pa., was a family event. River Valley Organics, a company in Wrightsville, Pa., arrived with a truck and blew the soil mix up a five-inch tube snaked up the side of the building ($4,000 for the entire job)

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why, you - you posted here, that must be enough....
lets make caps: 'perpetually banned'. sounds so-o underground....

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wow, i missed that one! that's a threat for sure. i remember the wars of last year, when i got thrown out - she was writing things like (not about me, but some other 'offenders') : "we know who you are. we know where you live. we know where you work."
that's sounds like a blackmail to me. but i guess in her eyes that's just the statement of fact.
in my view 100 people (or whatever the tiny membership is - she is not forthcoming with numbers) cannot possibly represent the 8K (last figure) of residents or 30k of working people there. period. no matter how good a job they think they're doing.

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cute. and somebody always harps how abaters 'don't contribute to school system'...aside from the fact that the majority of people in abated properties don't use the public school system at all, either 'cause they don't have kids of school age or 'cause they use private schooling.
but that aside - i really don't see what's the uproar about.
most buildings around powerhouse are already hi-rises. and this is becoming a very expensive area to develop. demolition and restoration is prohibitively expensive - otherwise the powerhouse would be all cleaned up long time ago. low-rise is not profitable enough to cover the costs. so it's quite plausible the guy will mothball the whole project. how is THAT better for the neighbourhood?
may be 10 or even 5 years ago restoration was doable - but now it's just too late.

i was not questioning the type of stores, but talking about the type of construction and surface parking. i read somewhere that in downtown jc surface parking lots are not allowed. of course they're still there - but may be it's temporary , since the future plans show redevelopment. but i don't know of any redev plans for commercial space in newport.

funny that you say - he should maximize land use - the buildings are way too close to the street and each other as is - where else to squeeze? the only saving grace is the parking garages between. by the way everywhere in downtown developers are required to build garages. naturally they're adjacent to the buildings themselves. and the only public one around path has been sort of hidden by the building. so i don't really see where else you'd put them. and nobody builds them underground here - isn't it a flood zone ? as far as concrete plz - the town square is fairly densely planted. they actually reduced the concrete space after redesign. they do need some hard surface for fairs and concerts - so the central wide path is used for that: i think that's a pretty good usage.
and there's supposed to be a fairly large park north of sc north - from washington all the way to the river - no obstruction.
it's the commercial zone that needs to be redone. building 1 story box for staples/modells is stupid, so is the gigantic parking lot for target - they should've build a parking garage there like at the mall, if anything!

on the off-topic of bklyn - check out your lunch enertainment here:
http://gutter.curbed.com/ - scroll down to bridezilla.

skadave, you hit the nail on the head!

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The jewel will be the Ellipse, a 460-foot tower of steel and glass that will contain 325 apartments.

The Ellipse is being designed by a well-known architec tural and planning firm, Arquitec tonica, which has built space-age creations from Miami to Manila.
now we're talking! if only i can find a glimpse of that! based on latest dev map - that should be on the pier n/ne of sc.

and westin is pretty good news.
by the way i like the combo of business/residential hi-rises a lot. since i spent years working down/mid town for banks/brokerages - the stone canyons are like home to me. i don't find them overbearing - more like little fish darting among sharp corals. yeh, i find vast expanse of glass exciting.
as a side note on isolation of newport - to me it's akin to cul-de-sac. considering the crime rates and demographics of jc - the presence of large business necessitates higher security - and that's just fine with a lot of people here. otherwise they wont even consider jc at all. after all the income levels here are very homogeneous and quite high.
another point that some of you might not be aware of - its the highest concentration of techies in metro area. and we're not talking just indian,it's everybody : american and foreign, whites and chinese and israeli. a lot of people run their business networks from home here or connect across the ocean - that's truly the most futuristic part.

and atlantic was doing good for quite a while. and the metro tech happened meanwhile. and heights been a swell place forever. so may be more thought and money went into atlantic yards...
jc and newport has been a dump meanwhile . ever seen a map of contaminated sites all over?
you'd think goldman tower is pleasing - but they're loosing money and it stands empty - but pleasing....
lefrak had to lay their own sewage and water - jc's wont support the high density high pressure , they also paid for roads , they laid the telecommunications and t1 to all buildings, when only the most expensive new lofts in manhattan had t1 available. there was no cable yet. they put an antenna on towers for rcn transmission from manhattan. 5 years later cable arrived in jc finally. it's easy for trump to come in now - 20 years later with booming offices downtown and lux hi-rises everplace.