HOW FAR TO THE ORGANIC ARUGULA?

 

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

Published: August 5, 2007

Time was — only a few years ago, in fact — that New Jersey real estate agents would play up the “latte factor” when marketing apartments in and around a downtown area.

“Look, it’s only three blocks from Starbucks!” seemed to be the sales mantra for every new condominium development and rental building.

More recently, though, it appears there is an amenity even hotter than coffee: fancy food.

“Jersey used to be a totally suburban-oriented, get-in-the-car-and-go-to-the-supermarket kind of place,” observed James Aug, a retail broker with CB Richard Ellis. “Now, with development centered on mass transit hubs, and people going for the maintenance-free lifestyle of an apartment in a city, there is call for the gourmet types of shops you see on the streets of Manhattan.”

When the Manhattan-based Garden of Eden chain opened an Eden Gourmet store in Hoboken seven months ago, condominium developers immediately began promoting the proximity of their projects to the store, at 226 Washington Street. Even developments in the city’s far northwest corner — like the new Velocity condo complex, Adams Square and several small buildings across from the Hoboken public housing projects — are heralding the store as an amenity, though they are 10 to 14 blocks away.

“A lot of our Hoboken buyers come from New York,” said Eric Kaiser of REMI Company, the Velocity developer. “They expect to be able to walk a short distance and find the perfect thing for dinner any day they choose.”

At the Port Imperial complex, which sprawls along the Hudson River through the towns of Weehawken, West New York and Guttenberg, the first residents had to drive one to three miles to find a grocery store in one of the local strip malls, and the developer, Roseland Properties, said it heard about the problem from residents.

This spring, an A & P Fresh Market featuring natural and organic foods, a prepared-foods section, fresh pastries and pizza made on the premises, opened in the ground floor of a building in Weehawken, part of Port Imperial’s retail section, Shops at Riverwalk.

In South Orange, where the area around the downtown train station is being redeveloped, town officials said last year that no condos would be allowed unless a specialty grocery store was also built.

On a site once occupied by a ShopRite store, construction has begun on a 96-unit building and an Eden Gourmet, which will be the second in New Jersey. The old ShopRite building is being completely renovated to house the new store by Sterling Properties, the project developer.

At 12,500 square feet, the South Orange store will be larger than others in the Garden of Eden chain, according to Mario Andreani, who recently went into partnership with Mustafa Coskun, who founded the line of stores in Manhattan. Shoppers will also be able to dine in a second-floor seating area, or on the third floor, indoors or outdoors.

There will be enough space to hold catered events, Mr. Andreani said. The store will offer fresh delicatessen items, a sushi bar, hand-squeezed juices, hundreds of cheeses, brick-oven pizza, organic produce, a bakery and gelato.

“If someone needs Pampers or paper towels,” he added, “they’ll have to go to Pathmark or ShopRite.”

Meanwhile, at the huge — and growing — Newport complex of rental and condo buildings along the Jersey City waterfront, Jamie LeFrak, director of the development company LeFrak Organization, said grocery shoppers should be able to get it all.

“We’re bringing in a 30,000-square-foot Morton Williams store, where gourmet items are available, but so is Wonder Bread and Cap’n Crunch,” said Mr. LeFrak, director of his family-owned company.

“There are a handful of upscale, organic-only grocery store chains out there now, and many condo developers like to buy into their product,” he said, “but our thinking is that if you have to make two trips, one to the gourmet store and another to a supermarket, then it defeats the whole purpose of having a market you can walk to.”

Mr. LeFrak did agree, however, that specialty and prepared foods were necessary. “The Newport demographic is heavily biased toward young professionals who work hard and earn a good living and are willing to pay for someone else to cook a nice dinner,” he said. “And since so many work in New York, they are used to that being available.”

The Morton Williams store, under construction in the base of the Shore Condominium Residences, will have a dining area, an organic produce selection, cheese, seafood, sushi and fine meats, and it will deliver to all Newport buildings.

Mr. LeFrak noted that he had a larger “palette” to work with than developers with projects in older, smaller downtown areas. In the past 20 years, on land that once served as docks, railroad yards and landfills, LeFrak has built 4,659 apartments in eight towers, a 190-room business hotel, and 2 million square feet of retail space that includes a shopping mall and restaurants.

“We have a Duane Reade, the only one in Jersey City,” he said of the pharmacy chain. “We have a health club, a bank, a wine and liquor store, a gelato place, a video store, a day spa, a pet services and supply store — it has a pet bakery — and, of course, we have a Starbucks.”

In the adjacent and much more compact city of Hoboken, there is nothing comparable. The Shipyard and 333 River Street, developments by Applied Companies, have small King’s Fresh Ideas stores, offering few generics and lots of specialty items.

The new Siena condo complex nearing completion in downtown Montclair bills itself as being close to a Whole Foods store, but it is probably more of a drive than a walk. A super-sized Whole Foods recently opened in West Orange in a building that used to hold a Kmart; shoppers drive to it from miles around, sometimes lining up outside before opening. There is also a built-in clientele from the immediate neighborhood around Pompton Avenue, as several large condo complexes have opened there in the past few years.

In rapidly developing Edgewater, the new One Hudson Park and Peninsula at City Place complexes are marketing their proximity not only to Whole Foods, but also to Trader Joe’s and Mitsuwa, a popular Asian specialty store that draws shoppers from Manhattan on weekends.

Upscale markets are planned at two projects where work has just begun, Canco Lofts in Jersey City and Centuria in Fort Lee.