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he Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PANYNJ) and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) are hoping to mitigate at lease some of this land squeeze by collaborating on the Portsfields Initiative, a project aimed at identifying and advancing to "shovel ready status" brownfield and/or underutilized sites in the ports region. The organizations have identified 17 sites for development in northern New Jersey stretching north-south from Kearny to Perth Amboy. Sites are also in Newark, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Linden, Carteret and Woodbridge.

The Technology Centre of New Jersey in North Brunswick is the site of a new Novo Nordisk research operation and new Rutgers University lab and commercialization facilities.

     "It's geared to capitalize on the expanding ports opportunities," says Tim Lizura, director of real estate for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. "There have been several channel deepenings and that will continue. We are going to be at 50-ft. [15.2-m.] depth, deep enough to allow super tankers to come through, so that will drive port container activity for the next 10 years."
     The $760-million project to deepen the harbor channels began in May 2005. The Port Authority had opened 45-ft. (13.7-m.) channels into the port earlier this year. The deeper channels will allow ships carrying more than 4,500 TEUs to call on the port. Other port infrastructure projects are also nearing completion. Major rail improvements at the Port Newark and Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine terminals will be completed between 2007 and 2009.
     Lizura says one of the initiative's goals is to capture some of the economic development activity in and around the port and to relocate non-direct container handling activities. He says the project, with a goal of reclaiming 1,000 acres (405 hectares), will maintain a narrow focus on areas close to port and air freight facilities.
     "We would like to try to improve these sites so they are suitable for high-throughput type warehouses," Lizura says. "We've gone through a fairly detailed process to develop this list, vetting it to find the sites that have the most potential."
     Lizura says most of the site work will be done in conjunction with private developers. He says the sites were originally designated for retail and non-industrial development, so the EDA is working with municipalities to rezone the properties. He says most of the sites are currently vacant. None are currently in a designated free trade zone, but he expects developers of several sites to apply for and receive such designation.

Mercedes-Benz USA has opened a new parts distribution center in Robbinsville.

     The PANYNJ and EDA, with the assistance of local government agencies, looked at hundreds of potential sites before narrowing it to a select 17. Development horizons for the sites range from six to 18 months to three to five years. Lizura says most are currently vacant and range from 25 to 50 acres (10 to 20 hectares).
     "One of the factors in determining sites was that we wanted locations that did not need a lot of infrastructure improvements to make them accessible," Lizura says.
     Catellus Development (acquired in early June, pending SEC approval, by ProLogis) signed up to build the first Portsfields Initiative distribution center. At the time of the merger announcement, Catellus was already demolishing existing structures at a site adjacent to the Port of Elizabeth and will build a 600,000-sq.-ft. (55,740-sq.-m.) distribution center by the second half of 2006 at a site immediately adjacent to the Port of Elizabeth and one mile from Newark Liberty International Airport. Although a tenant has not been announced, it will likely be a consumer goods company.
     "The property has excellent access to the New Jersey Turnpike and proximity to the three biggest demand drivers in the region: the port, the airport and New York City," said Nelson C. Rising, Catellus chairman and CEO, earlier this year. (Rising will sit on the board of the newly combined companies.)
     Punctuating the need for prime warehouse space are increasing oil prices, which boost the appeal of sites with easy access to ports, air and rail transportation, according to the latest Sitar-Rutgers Regional Report on the New Jersey economy.
     Sitar-Rutgers says there's a rush to lock up any remaining land or usable sites near the airport and seaports. The Sitar-Rutgers report also says the state's leading employment growth sector in 2004 was government, which accounted for 32.4 percent of all the jobs gained. The state lost nearly 90,000 manufacturing jobs between July 2002 and March 2005.
     While distribution and bio-pharma are two of the state's industrial strengths, other sectors are sagging. The state bid adieu to auto assembly this year with the closing of the GM plant in Linden in April and the Ford plant in Edison in February. But that doesn't mean there aren't new automotive facilities.

New Jersey's Portsfields Initiative has initially targeted 17 sites for potential redevelopment as distribution center locations.

     New Jersey's location, which keeps it poised to serve Northeast markets as well as mid-Atlantic regions, continually sees new distribution centers open across the state. One of the latest is Mercedes-Benz USA's 456,000-sq.-ft. (42,300-sq.-m.) regional parts distribution facility in Robbinsville that will create 150 jobs.

     Novo Nordisk, the Denmark-based healthcare giant, which has its North American headquarters in Princeton, chose North Brunswick for its first-of-its-kind haemostasis research center. The 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,800-sq.-m.) facility is set to open during the third quarter of 2005 in The Technology Centre of New Jersey, a high-tech research park developed by the NJEDA in North Brunswick. The 50-acre (20-hectare) site has been designed around the needs of high-tech firms, especially those in biosciences.
     Novo Nordisk says it will create at least 25 research positions by the end of the year and up to 60 over the next few years. The company was recently named the best place to work among large companies in the state by NJBIZ magazine and The Best Companies Group.
     Rutgers University is also busy at the Technology Centre, opening new lab and commercialization space aimed at speeding development of discoveries in wireless data networking, high-density electric energy storage, and pharmaceutical discovery and development.
     New Jersey's state biotechnology venture capital firm made its first investment in Celator Pharmaceuticals. The state created the Garden State Life Sciences Venture Fund last year. It is one of several venture capital firms investing a total of $40 million in Celator, a developer of cancer treatments. The Princeton-headquartered company was founded in Vancouver, B.C., in 2000.