By Michael Hill
Correspondent
“What might have been a niche market is now a national demographic trend,” said HHG Development Associates Principal David Henderson.
Developers Michael Goldstein and Henderson are investing a $150 million to convert old warehouses in to nearly 200 market-value lofts, shops and offices in Trenton where published reports say the population is declining.
“I believe it’s actually increasing today,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein says census takers undercount immigrants from Guatemala and Central America. He believes the new arrivals and the kind and number of businesses they’re opening mean Trenton’s population and tax base are increasing.
“Trenton is now the sixth largest Guatemalan community in the country,” Goldstein said.
So Goldstein and Henderson say the market is ripe for their development targeting millenials. City Hall says employers are taking notes.
“And larger scale employers on the corporate level are realizing that now there are employees that they want to attract that don’t want to be in the suburbs, they want to be in the city. So Trenton becomes strategically located and very important from a recruitment perspective as well,” said Trenton Housing and Economic Development Director Monique King-Viehland.
But, City Hall also owns up to a labor-readiness shortage.
“There’s an opportunity there for us now to work with the public education system and community colleges to close that gap,” King-Viehland said.
The mayor says it can happen and points to violent crime.
“From where we were in 2013 having a record number of homicides to now we’re trending totally in the other direction — crime is substantially down,” said Mayor Eric Jackson.
The question that keeps coming up for Trenton is that why hasn’t it seen the kind of economic growth that Jersey City and Hoboken have seen?
“That could be kind of a false comparison,” said Rutgers Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Academic Director Jeffrey Robinson.
Robinson says Trenton doesn’t sit in the shadows of Manhattan and it shuts down after 5 with state government as its biggest employer.
“What else happens in the city? So that’s part of its image. You have to think about that. Now, there are people working on that but that is part of the things that they have to overcome,” Robinson said.
City Hall says state government doesn’t invest here the way a corporate giant would.
“What I would like to say is pay your fair share,” Jackson said.
Mayor Jackson says he’s in constant talks with the state to relinquish under-used land along the riverfront for development like shops and lofts.
Goldstein — a native New Yorker — says it may be hard for some to envision a major turnaround for Trenton, but who would have ever thought Times Square would go from gritty to golden?
“This stuff goes in cycles, you know. The stars are now aligning for Trenton,” Goldstein said.
And perhaps too for those investing in its future.