Well – that may be pushing it a little too far, but I’ll explain why i even said that shortly.

A few weeks back when I was writing for HotelChatter, I came across the article of how 1,200 hotel rooms are being built in Elizabeth – and as you can see from what I wrote:

1,200 luxury hotel rooms to be built as part of $2 billion development right in the center of dirty jerz – Elizabeth, home of oil refineries and Newark Airport. (hey – I live in NJ, I’m allowed to say it)

I was pretty surprised by this announcement. All kidding and joking aside about Dirty Jerz – Elizabeth is not the place where you would expect to see a 1,200 room project in the middle of luxury residential highrises as well as other mixed-use components. For those who are not familiar with Elizabeth, it is primarily made up of Newark Airport (half of the airport property lies in Elizabeth, half in Newark) the NJ Turnpike, Ikea, Jersey Gardens Mall, and one of the largest ports in America – Port Elizabeth – which really takes up the most space out of everything. Of course, there is a residential area, but it’s mainly a low to middle-income area.

I started looking into this development a little further and I came across alot of information. Pretty much the development is called Celadon, being built by the Tern Group, LLCand will be built in four stages adjoining the Jersey Gardens Mall. When the project is finally completed it will consist of over 8 million square feet of office, residential, retail and hotel space. It is also being build to LEED specifications making it New Jersey’s largest mixed use green project ever.

Besides the fact that this is a huge project, has green components – making it a newsworthy item – and will surely change the area from a blighted bare industrial wasteland to a inviting sustainable city, what interests me so much about this project is its potential to change the face of Elizabeth. There is really no doubt about Elizabeth’s importance to the economy of New Jersey, New York – and quite honestly – the rest of America due to it being the busiest port on the East Coast, having one of the busiest airports in the nation and the amount of transportation traffic that goes through the area – via rail or highway. But the area has a horrible reputation – when most people think of New Jersey, the first thing they think about is the industrial area that surrounds Newark Airport, putting a bad taste is most visitors mouth unless they take the time to see that there is more to NJ than the turnpike and smokestacks.

What’s interesting is I see some similarities between Celadon and Newport- the mixed-use community within Jersey City started in the early 1980′s by the LeFrak Organization. From what I understand, the creation of Newport brought Jersey City back from being a forgotten town due to the railroads leaving to a booming city with both a major presence by worldwide corporations to residents once again happy to call Jersey City home. From the development of Newport, other commercial developments were encouraged – and now block after block of the Jersey City waterfront is made up of either commercial or residential high-rises making Jersey City a lower cost alternative to both residents and corporations used to the high prices in Manhattan.

I also see the same similarities in Hoboken – a few years ago Hoboken was a forgotten town, sure there were plenty of residents, plenty of places to live – but now Hoboken is a destination, its a hip place where if you walk around the waterfront at 1AM on the weekend – you’re not going to be surrounded by undesirables – the area is packed with residents, and patrons of the many bars and restaurants that have popped up throughout town. Why do I think Hoboken went through a change? Companies such as The Applied Companies who invested millions in creating major residential developments and SJP Properties who did the same for commercial development – if it wasn’t for their foresight and their taking a risk in an area which was once thought lost Hoboken would not be as it is today.

That’s why I see Celadon as a catalyst to the next phase of Elizabeth’s growth. Its obvious that this development will take time to be completed – especially with the current credit markets sure to make it harder to get the project off the ground, but as long as the Tern Group sticks to its goal – it’s the beginning to a new day in Elizabeth.

andrew@alconic-inc.com