Call it a home-court advantage or call it proof of concept … and when it came to picking the next governor at the Jersey City Summit for Real Estate, call it early.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop was the clear choice of those surveyed, taking more than 80% of the unofficial vote.
“I’ve lived for 20 years, I’ve lived the difference,” one attendee said.
“Have you seen how many buildings have gone up,” said another.
An obvious non-developer offered this: “The greatest thing he’s done is prove you don’t need to give away a lot of money to get people to build here.”
Fulop’s support was strong, but not unanimous. Republican favorite Jack Ciatterelli got a few nodes (“he’s the most pro-bonus”) as did Democratic nominee, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (“he’s done as much in Newark as Fulop has done here.”)
No one had a negative view of Fulop — but one person wasn’t ready to go positive either.
“The development would have come no matter who was mayor,” they said.
An unofficial poll of Murphy was much closer. A look:
Q: Judge Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration strictly on his impact on commercial real estate (with 1 being bad and 5 being great).
- Zero
- 12%
- 40%
- 40%
- 8%
While it’s fair to say Murphy had about a 3.5 aggregate score, one attendee wanted to give him more than just a 5.
“He’s made it easy to get things done compared to New York City, where they can’t make a decision on anything,” the person said. “He gets a lot of credit for what’s happened here (in Jersey City) and Newark.”
Q: President Donald Trump made his mark as a real estate developer – how will he be for the sector in the next four years?
- 28%
- 16%
- 16%
- 36%
- 4%
Comments? They ran the gamut, as you would expect. The best was this:
“The biggest issue is you just can’t be sure what he’s going to do from one day to the next,” the person said.
There was only one certainty here: An overflow crowd.
Sherif Abouzied, the creator and managing principal of the Summit, said this year’s event was the biggest ever — with more than 1,250 people expected to be here at one time or another.
While Abouzied’s ability to draw top panelists certainly was a draw, he gave credit to the CRE success story of the city.
“The excitement in Jersey City hasn’t diminished in any way,” he said. “We’re seeing larger players and bigger families continually enter the market and build bigger.
“Jersey City is still going strong — and there isn’t any sign that it’s going to lose any of the steam that it’s gained over the last 10 years.”
