While Newark might not have the best reputation for business, Miles Berger, chairman and CEO of The Berger Organization, told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that he has had success in the Brick City and plans to expand further there.
“I found when I came to Newark, which was 34 years ago, I found the ability to buy properties at low prices and rehabilitate them and bring them up economically,” Berger said. “And create new properties out of — in some cases — abandoned properties.”
Although Newark had a reputation of being tough and troubled, Berger said he hasn’t had any negative experiences. “I was able to find a niche in the market and I really in 34 years never have had any problems in Newark in terms of trouble,” he said.
Berger first bought a Holiday Inn on Broad Street that was closed down after the owners couldn’t make it work. He said his group reopened it and became “instantly successful.”
Since that first purchase, Berger said he has acquired about 10 properties, including the Robert Treat Hotel. “I’ve always been interested in the Robert Treat from the beginning. It has a fantastic history. It opened in 1916. It was named after the founder of the city of Newark, Robert Treat. And it was the premiere hotel for many, many years — for decades — in the city of Newark,” he said. “When I bought it in the mid 80s it was in disrepair. Business was way off and I was able to go in and over a period of years rehabilitate it, redo the office building because it was a hotel and office building. And after many years, maybe 10 or 12 years of hard work, we became successful in that facility.”
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Berger said Newark has a different reputation now than it had 30 years ago. He said the Brick City feeds off New York City and has a larger tourism business base than in the past. Many office buildings that were closed or in disrepair have been rehabilitated over the past 10 or 15 years, according to Berger, and businesses are coming back to Newark.
“We attract people from firms from New York, firms from the Midwest. After 9/11, we had a big flux of firms coming from lower Manhattan to Newark,” Berger said. “So Newark has reached a point now where the reputation has been overcome that it had in the early 70s.”
While improvements have been made, Berger admits that work still needs to be done in Newark. “The downtown central business district has improved greatly over the past years and neighborhoods are improving too. Not all neighborhoods, but this will take time,” he said. “This will take 10s of years, several decades for the entire city to rebound.”
Berger said the political leadership is up for the task and he believes improvements to the business district — including hotels and venues like the Prudential Center and NJPAC — will “pick up the entire city.”
Berger has plans to build a new hotel opposite the Broad Street Station, which is the site of the Holiday Inn he originally purchased. That building, which he said had an old-fashioned construction, was demolished.