Rt. 1 Commercial Real Estate Experiences a Setback, Report Finds

South Brunswick, NJ - This will likely not come as a surprise to anyone who's driven past all the "For Lease" signs on the warehouses along Rt. 1.

The New Jersey commercial real market experienced a setback in 2015, with Central New Jersey in particular facing a downturn, according to a new report released this week by Cushman & Wakefield real estate services firm. In fact, normally active markets like Princeton/Route 1 and Woodbridge/Edison experienced lackluster sales and rentals in 2015 and the first quarter of this year.

In fact, the entire state of New Jersey showed a lull in deal activity last year, with just 1.6 million square feet of new leases inked in the Garden State, the report found.

"This is the first quarter since Q4 2014 in which New Jersey failed to see strong demand and occupancy gains," said Andrew Judd, Cushman & Wakefield’s New Jersey Market Leader.

The demand for large, commercial or industrial real estate space in Central New Jersey has simply gone down, the report found.

Out of the entire state, only the Hudson waterfront real estate market thrived during the first quarter of this year: Areas like Jersey City and Hoboken accounted for 20 percent of leasing totals and five of the state’s top ten transactions. Sizeable deals were inked by Rubbermaid, which took 99,960 square feet at 221 River Street in Hoboken, as well as Jet.com, AMEX Global Business Travel, World Business Lenders and Crum & Forster. The Route 10/24 Corridor and Bergen County also both posted healthy quarterly demand totals, Cushman & Wakefield found.

Meanwhile, commercial rents in Central New Jersey dropped slightly in the first part of this year, with a decline of $0.06 in the overall average asking rental rate to $26.35 per square foot.

Stock image/Morguefile