Middle Atlantic Regional Forecast
New Jersey • New York • Pennsylvania
Although the Big Apple has been rocked by the recession and suffered from job losses in the financial markets, large construction projects in Long Island City, N.Y., and Jersey City, N.J., are propping up some of the construction numbers. The $198.5 million Monaco Residential Towers broke ground in Jersey City earlier this year and a 21-story, 660,000-square-foot building for the New York City Health Department is now being built in Long Island City. This building will be part of a much bigger project, Gotham Center, which reportedly would have up to 3.5 million square feet in office space. Also underway are research centers for City University of New York and Mount Sinai hospital, and the on-again, off-again construction of office buildings at the World Trade Center site. Also on hold because of the credit crisis is Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards development , which would have a new arena for the National Basketball Association's Nets. Helping fuel some of the region's construction are the low office vacancy rates for the central business districts of New York (8.6 percent) and Philadelphia (12.6 percent), which are healthy compared to the national average of 17.1 percent.
