I love clicking on posts thinking they are jokes, and then realizing they are for real, and how delusional people can be.

This real-estate crap needs to stop. It's pathetic how these crappy PR firms are hired, thinking that a few articles in local papers can reverse decades of the cultural and economic situations of a city.

It's a sad attempt to try and cash in on new condos and homes, by trying to trick transplants into a concept that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Why can't a city just be what it is. Trenton has it's place in our state and country's history, i think it is downright comedy to try and say it's the "NEW" anything. It's ridiculous.

When will it end? How outrageous will all this "NEW CITY" talk get?

Staten Island is the New Atlantis.
Morristown is the New Paris
And the Jersey City waterfront will now be the New center of the universe.

I used to visit an aunt years ago in Trenton. Then Trenton was surrounded by farms. These farms have now become housing units. I agree Trenton housing stock is beautiful. However, instead of rebuilding Trenton, people bought new housing on former farm land. Shame.

Trenton is not going anywhere anything soon. Philly is not new York and the commute is horrible and theres a state prison in the middle of the city!!!!

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What's the name of that great Italian restaurant in Chambersberg?

I also love the area near Caldawader (sp?) Park

There are some beautiful old homes that run along side it.

Alb,

If you like that one - here are three more on that patch of land called the Island right on the Delaware River - so flooding might well be a problem. If I remember there is also a park that runs the who length of the waterfront there. I knew a young couple who bought one a few years back -- I think Trenton unlike Downtown Jersey City was really hit hard by the sub prime mortgage crisis -- a lot of stuff is hitting the market now in foreclosure. As Ian pointed out this area might have some flooding issues being on the Delaware but these buildings look to date way back so you'd have to go and check them. I think this is one of the safer area in downtown Trenton.

There is a lot of underground Jazz - I was at an Acid Jazz club about 7 years ago downtown Trenton. There is also a big foundry art foundation just outside of town where a lot of artists make huge mostly bad art -- I think it is in Hamilton.

BTW. -- I just like looking at real estate - I wouldn't buy these nor would I even recommend them or the area. I think there are programs for people who teach in Trenton to get no-interest loans to buy houses out of foreclosure and in some cases even the whole purchase price is forgiven if they teach for something like 5 years there -- so maybe this will work out well for some Trenton school teachers.

Here are more in the Island area the 1st one seems to be in foreclosure.

http://www.trulia.com/foreclosure/200 ... ield-Ave-Trenton-NJ-08618

http://www.trulia.com/property/104535 ... mbia-Ave-Trenton-NJ-08618

http://www.trulia.com/property/105732 ... well-Ave-Trenton-NJ-08618

Anyway enough thinking about Trenton...

The island section of trenton floods ALL the time, that is the reason real estate there is on the cheap end.

Trenton does have a ton of other issues to address before sane urbanites who have other options will plant roots there. Imagine wanting to go out with friends for a night on the town. If you live in trenton you will have to decide if you are going drive to philly, princeton, new brunswick or nyc as I am sure you will tire of the one or two places here that cater to young urbanites.

Again trenton has a ton of issues. Any person who would leave JC and skip over all the other areas in North Jersey to live in Trenton needs their sanity checked or must have a grand plan to make a fortune. Downtown Trenton empties at 6pm when all the state workers leave.

The city has some beautiful housing stock, grand victorians, federal brownstones and the like but there really is little to do in the way of entertainment/restaurants, parks, in the city.


One huge issue that I think contributes to the city's predicament is that instead of building affordable housing within their boundaries, many of areas surrounding Trenton send their affordable housing dollars to Trenton. As a result, Trenton is a magnet for people seeking affordable housing. So Trenton in many ways has become an island refuge for the people on the lower end of the socioeconmic ladder surrounded by a sea of more wealthy municipalities. That must change for Trenton to improve.

It's ridiculous to call Trenton the next Hoboken ... but give Trenton a break. It is not one big ghetto. I lived there for 2 years in the Chambersburg section 1995-97 when I worked at the Statehouse, and I loved it. Trenton has a thriving jazz scene (Try Joe's Mill Hill Saloon) and some of the best Italian restaurants/eateries, among others, in the Northeast. Little by little, Trenton, which got its arse kicked during the riots/white flight of the 60's, is coming back to life. In fact my good friend is very bullish on Trenton. A few years ago he purchased a rundown 3-story row house and garage near the renovated Broad Street Bank building. After months of rehab, he turned the property around. The garage now houses his recording studio which doubles as a sort-of social club where Trentonians of all stripes get together to hear or play music - and party.

http://microjazz.com

Maybe I remember it wrong, maybe it's that Lodi is the next Piscataway.

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I hear that the reverse is true.

Yea and camden is the new village and irvington is the new soho, gimme a break all this "X" is the new"X" crap is annoying. I cant wait till Jersey City becomes uncool again.

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But what a great, honest ad. I bet that house sells quickly.

I hear Paterson is the next Bayonne.

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I'm not buying but can you find prices in Secaucus starting in the $20,000's for single family houses?


Starting at 19G's -- click here

I am only kidding here -- but there is an area of Trenton on the Delaware River - on the west side of the highway that Ian talked about -- it's called "The Island" area and I see a place listed on Trulia -- must be a total shell but it's only a $43,000 asking.

Too much work!


Link here

Speaking of Camden here is a link from the "Hoboken Now" Blog about Camden being the next Next Hoboken: CLICK LINK BELOW

http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ss ... have_a_new_contender.html

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And just to stay on topic on this "off topic" thread

Here is the original article from the Trenton Times.

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Moving on up in Trenton

Trenton Times

Thursday, April 24, 2008

We used to snicker at places like Hoboken, Jersey City, Weehawken. Loser towns. Rust belt. Has-been or never-been Jersey dumps.

And now look. These towns are hot, part of the so-called "NJ Gold Coast," brimming with Park Avenue lawyers, Wall Street bankers, financial analysts, computer geeks, artists. They're close to Manhattan, full of large spaces for good prices, and -- very appealing -- the towns themselves are exciting, edgy, historic.

So, why not Trenton? Trenton has all of the above and more. Easy access to New York and Philadelphia, a glorious housing stock, a magnificent river, a thriving canal and adjacent state park, a Frederick Law Olmsted city park, a celebrated history (no rural battlefield here -- two of Trenton's main streets were the Battle of Trenton's front line) and hospitable neighborhoods full of character and diversity.

My only question is, what's tak ing so long? Why isn't Trenton a premier "go-to" venue for more urban pioneers, adventurous young professionals, city-lovers with start ing salaries?

I bring this up because, just last week, I stood with throngs of excited onlookers at the official opening of the renovated Broad Street Bank building. We were excited be cause this was about the best news Trenton has had since Washington routed the Hessians. Just kidding. Maybe since the opening of the Marriott Hotel at Lafayette Yard six years ago.

The miracle of the Broad Street Bank building is that, in several years, it has gone from a sorrowful, abandoned, decaying fossil, named to the Top 10 list of New Jersey's Most Endangered Historic Sites, to a handsome, viable residential and retail anchor in downtown Tren ton.

Its soaring 12 stories tout 124 one- and two-bedroom "luxury" rental apartments -- "luxury" might be a stretch, but the one- bedroom I saw last week was roomy, high-ceiled, large-windowed, energy-efficient and very pleasant. The open rooftop gives excellent views of the city and be yond. Along the sidewalk are five spaces for retail and commercial use.

This is the shocker: It's not an arm and a leg. Apartments rent for $925 to $1,510 a month; some even have "affordable" status and cost less. New Yorkers, Philadelphians, Princetonians, eat your hearts out.

Now, don't go looking for the Broad Street Bank on Broad Street. It's on the corner of East State and Montgomery streets, just a block or two from almost anywhere you've wanted to go downtown. Its name comes from its original storefront location on South Broad, at its founding in 1887. It grew so rapidly that, in 1900, its managers decided to build Tren ton's most imposing, certainly its tallest, building, on the present site. In 1913 and again in 1924, it was expanded until it became its current size. It was heralded as Trenton's first skyscraper.

For the next half century, from its prominent headquarters, the Broad Street Bank participated fully in the life and growth of the city.

In 1961, the bank moved elsewhere and the building, vacant and neglected, started deteriorating. There was talk of demolition.

The Trenton Historical Society, Preservation New Jersey and other organizations rallied support and interest in the building and, in 2005, a developer, Bayville Holdings LLC from Long Island, stepped for ward, bought the building and rehabilitated it to retail and residential units, restoring many of the unique features such as the elaborate copper cornice and terra cotta masonry.

So, here she is, a grand dame, beautifully outfitted, fit as a fiddle, ready to dance. But she needs a few more courageous dance partners. How about it, Hubby Al? Wanna move? Think of it. No more lawn to mow. No more roof to fix. No more real estate taxes to pay. Walk to the train station. Sounds good to me.

Mea Kaemmerlen lives in Plainsboro. Contact her at meakaem@aol l.com.

If "Gay Americans" are moving in...it can't be all bad. hehehehe!

Now Camden is a scary place!

Camden is cheaper.

Trenton has a lot of problems that can't easily be overcome, and several problems which could be fixed but won't be without significant investment which the state is unwilling or unable to make.

First, on the westside of the city, 29 cuts the city off from the river. In Hoboken / Jersey City, the waterfront has been turned into a huge asset, which Trenton will probably never have because of the highway.

Second, many of the government buildings between 29 and State Street are laid out in a suburban office park manner with a tower in the center of massive parking lots. The whole area is desolate as a result, and the parking lots separating the buildings from the streets means there is little pedestrian traffic, and little chance of creating an urban fabric that is so critical in Hoboken's success and the which is slowly taking shape in Jersey City.

Third, Trenton floods. It doesn't flood like Hoboken where streets are inundated with water, it floods like New Orleans, but much more regularly, especially on the north side of the city, which is generally the "nice" part of town.

Meanwhile, the trains in Trenton fail to provide sufficient access to the city's core. The northeast corridor train station is disconnected and far from the city center where the state house and most of the state offices are located. The bus connection is slow, and adds yet another transfer to the inbound journey. One day in the Utopian future, the light rail line might connect to the downtown city center, but for now that connection exists only in the dreams of urban planners. Trenton is a place people take the train from, not to. Because Trenton is a car centric city, office development requires either vast parking lots, which is not good for building city centers, or building parking garages which are costlier.

And in addition to that, office development within the city is competing with the route 1 corridor, where there is still some virgin land available for more office parks and strip malls. By contrast, there is little virgin land left in North Jersey at all. Trenton has many contaminated sites like Jersey City, but the difference is, its easy to acquire farmland near to Trenton and build from a fresh plot than it is in Hudson County.

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Just out of curiosity... have you ever been to Trenton? Or are you just assuming that the entire city is a dump based on a visit to one small section?

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If I worked in Princeton during the day I could never bring myself to go back Trenton.

I just can't see Trenton taking off... This sort of sounds similar to the Victor Lofts project in Camden (albeit on a smaller scale). The Victor Lofts look awesome -- they're made out of the old RCA Victor Victrola factory near the Delaware waterfront, literally minutes across the river from Philly, yet from what I gather, they've never been at full occupancy or stimulated growth in the surrounding neighborhood whatsoever. And that is literally 5 minutes away from downtown Philly. Trenton is so much further away! The lofts sound cool, but they may be best for not someone who works in Philly or NYC, but maybe Princeton or New Brunswick.

If you have a NJ monthly transit pass you can take the Amtrak train that runs on the Northeast Corridor line. There are only 3 stops (New Brunswick, Metropark, Newark) in between Trenton and New York

Regardless, you're right in that it is smarter marketing to align it with Philly.

There are some nice neighborhoods in Trenton. It's been about 4 years since I've spent any time there. However, there's a street near the waterfront that has really beautiful historic row homes with good bones.

Trenton is more closely associated with Philly than NYC. Like others have said, unless they have a non-stop train between Trenton and NYC I would never move there. It's also too far from the airports.

More RE hype, if you work near Trenton it might be worth looking into.
You might as well live in Secaucus, re prices are about the same without the killer commute.

True but the New York Times had this last weekend:

A BRICK OVEN, BUT NOT IN THE KITCHEN Michael Goldstein, a partner in HHG Development, which is creating loft apartments in a former oyster cracker factory.
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From Transition to Revival in Trenton

The New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: April 20, 2008

?NEW lofts in Victorian factory bldg w/12- to 17-ft. clngs, pri. gardens, terraces, garages: 2 BR, 3 BA corner unit, $281,250. Other 2 BRs, from $141,000; 1 BRs, from $129,000.?

It?s true. All true.

But it?s in Trenton.

Never mind that, say the developers of the factory building. It is in an up-and-coming neighborhood of New Jersey?s notoriously shabby capital city, three blocks from the brick streets of historic Mill Hill, an area now so fully restored that visitors might think they have stumbled into Georgetown in central New Jersey.

?This has to be the last place within an hour of Manhattan where you can get a fantastic new apartment with historic character and extraordinary architecture for under $300,000,? said Michael Goldstein, one of three partners of HHG Development, the local company that is creating the lofts.

In fact, it is possible here only because of a state program for bolstering development of ?transitional areas.? The Housing Mortgage Finance Agency sponsors the program, which grants construction subsidies to developers, averaging about $75,000 per unit in this case, to encourage them to undertake high-quality projects in areas where market sales prices would otherwise be too low to justify the effort.

?The bottom line,? Mr. Goldstein said, ?is that these units are being sold for less than HHG?s cost.?

Two of 18 condominiums being created in the Victorian cracker-baking factory are reserved for low-income buyers; there are no income restrictions for other purchasers ? and four sales contracts were signed on market-rate units before all the interior walls were framed. Four of eight units in a smaller HHG development three blocks away also have signed contracts.

It may that Trenton, set roughly halfway between New York and Philadelphia, is somewhat insulated from market sluggishness, said Sasa Montano, the city?s economic development chief. ?We don?t have large-scale development flooding the market with units, for one thing,? she said. ?We have small and medium-sized developments, like this one in a neighborhood that is already established and is going to have the redeveloped train station within walking distance ? it should be finished within a few months ? and a planned new school, and a large fresh-foods grocery store is also set to go in.?

It has been 44 years since Mayor Arthur Holland of Trenton made front page news in The New York Times by moving into a ramshackle row house in Mill Hill to demonstrate his commitment to reviving it. Now, Trenton officials make much of the fact that all three of HHG?s partners live in Mill Hill, which is a short walk from the Ferry Historic District where the redevelopment is under way.

Jim Coston, who is both the pastor of a neighborhood church and a city councilman, noted that he helped lead the charge against a previous plan to demolish all the buildings on a six-block parcel ? including both buildings that HHG is now renovating. The plan had been to put in a ?big, cookie-cutter condo development,? he said, adding that now, he and his parishioners believe ?exactly the right thing is happening.?

The former Exton oyster cracker factory, which in more recent years served as a surplus storage warehouse, is a ?glorious space,? in the words of Ms. Montano, and ?the coolest building in Trenton,? according to a rival developer, Dan Dodson of Trenton Lofts, who at one time was also interested in renovating it.

The individual units in the new condo, now called the Cracker Factory, will have some extraordinary features: The most expensive, the two-bedroom listed at $285,000, has 10 tall windows along two sides of its top floor, looking out over the corner of Centre and Furman Streets.

A 1,700-square-foot one-bedroom unit will contain two of the original factory?s barrel-vaulted brick ovens, with one serving as the bedroom; that unit also has the bakery?s original tile floors, and offers an additional 1,103 square feet of living space below, opening to a private garden. The unit is priced at $255,750.

?Could there be a more unusual place to live in New Jersey? In the Northeast? Or really, anywhere?? asked Mr. Goldstein as he showed off the half-built apartment?s oven rooms.

The surrounding area also has the value of historic standing, said John Hatch, an architect specializing in historic preservation and another HHG partner. The tide of the American Revolution is said to have turned during the first Battle of Trenton; the second Battle of Trenton was fought at Assunpink Creek in Mill Hill, Mr. Hatch said.

He and David Henderson, a fellow architect who is the third partner in HHG, have worked together since 1994 in restoring more than a dozen residences in Mill Hill. They created the first ?luxury? condo in Trenton out of an old labor organization hall.

Mr. Hatch, who is also a partner in the firm of Clarke Caton Hintz and involved with the New Jersey Historic Trust and other preservation groups, restored Morven, the former governor?s mansion in Princeton. He serves as HHG?s preservation specialist.

Mr. Henderson, who designed Trenton Makes, an arts-related complex that includes live-work space, shops and galleries, supervises HHG?s project construction and is constantly at the Cracker Factory site, where work will finish sometime in the fall.

Mr. Goldstein, a former high-tech business executive whose wife, June Ballinger, is the director of the Passage Theater Company in Trenton, joined his partners three years ago to work on projects in the Ferry district ? ?the next great neighborhood,? he said.

Both Sovereign Bank Arena and the Mercer County Sports Complex are blocks away. The entrance to Route 1 is less than a mile from the Cracker Factory. And the theater company is also close, said Mr. Goldstein.

Plus,? he added, ?the area is Starbucks-free ? and some people appreciate that.?

The second HHG project will create eight more condo apartments in a cluster of three small buildings a block and a half from the Cracker Factory.

That project, called Everett Corner, will also offer wood moldings and exposed brick.

At both the Cracker Factory and Everett Corner, HHG will install solar power panels in the common areas, and provide the option of solar panels to purchasers of individual units.

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes in Trenton will understand why Trenton will never be the next Hoboken.

It sounds great and all but until they get some bullet train that goes straight from Trenton to NYC, I doubt I am moving there any time soon. As much as I like JC, I wouldn't live there unless it offered me QUICK access to NYC.

The next Next Hoboken: Trenton!

by Craig at www.hobokennow.com
Thursday April 24, 2008, 1:23 PM

It's been awhile since we've had a new "Next Hoboken." (A side effect of the housing slump?) We've previously heard the "New Hoboken" tag applied to Camden, Elizabeth, Harrison, Long Island City, Morristown, Rahway and Secaucus - just to name a few.

Today a new contender emerges with a plucky rallying cry: "Why not Trenton?"

"We used to snicker at places like Hoboken, Jersey City, Weehawken," Mea Kaemmerlen wrote in today's Serendipity column for the Times of Trenton. "Loser towns. Rust belt. Has-been or never-been Jersey dumps."

But who's laughing now? Kaemmerlen says Hoboken et. al. are "brimming with Park Avenue lawyers, Wall Street bankers, financial analysts, computer geeks, artists." (She also could point out that Hoboken also has New Jersey's governor, one of its U.S. Senators and the Super Bowl MVP, but I digress.)

She says Trenton offers all Hoboken has and more:

Easy access to New York and Philadelphia, a glorious housing stock, a magnificent river, a thriving canal and adjacent state park, a Frederick Law Olmsted city park, a celebrated history (no rural battlefield here -- two of Trenton's main streets were the Battle of Trenton's front line) and hospitable neighborhoods full of character and diversity.

It also has a baseball team - and not just any baseball team, but the Trenton Thunder, the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. Hoboken, as the birthplace of baseball, could definitely use one of those.

So, Kaemmerlen writes, Trenton is ready to become the next Hoboken. But where are the next Hobokenites - "urban pioneers, adventurous young professionals, city-loves with starting salaries"?

No more lawn to mow. No more roof to fix. No more real estate taxes to pay. Walk to the train station. Sounds good to me.

She lives in Plainsboro, by the way.