“With many of our state’s incentive packages geared to tenants that locate in New Jersey cities, it is important to raise awareness of the benefits of moving to an urban area,” noted Sean Brady, a Cushman & Wakefield broker and IOREBA’s secretary. “As a trade association, it is our job to provide opportunities, like Urban Developer’s Night, for people to learn why our cities are the key to New Jersey’s continued progress and to highlight the projects and programs that are available.”

Tim Lizura, senior vice president of business development of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA), served as the featured speaker at the event, which took place at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark. His remarks centered around three topics, beginning with the state's renewed calling plan to engage the business community. The program is an outgrowth of the merger, in 2008, of the New Jersey Commerce Commission with the EDA.

"The EDA staff has undertaken the administration of business assistance program management that Commerce had previously overseen," Lizura said. "That freed up former Commerce staff to focus on calling on the business community to find out where we can be helpful. We put together a tiered approach to identify the companies that our economic development team at all levels will be calling upon. We rolled the program out in the first quarter of this year, and we're seeing nice results from it."

The second topic Lizura explored was the new "green" economy. "New Jersey is trying to capture not just the ecological benefits, but also the economic benefits of the industry," Lizura told the nearly 200 IOREBA event attendees. Among the specific programs he outlined was the Clean Energy Manufacturing Fund, which offers grants and zero interest loans to companies in the supply chain of renewables if they establish a manufacturing operation in New Jersey.

"We are also the recipient of Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative [RGGI] dollars," Lizura said. "The proceeds of this initiative advanced by the Legislature and the Corzine Administration are going to support projects that reduce greenhouse gases, as well as to companies that create jobs by locating in energy-efficient facilities."

The third topic of discussion was the state's programmatic support for businesses, beginning with the new Main Street Business Assistance Program for small businesses. "It provides guarantees to companies that might have a credit need in the current environment," he explained. "For example, a company looking to refinance an existing credit facility but finding that to be a challenge might participate through a direct loan or a guarantee for a portion of it."

And for larger companies there is the Invest NJ program, a grant program offering $3,000 per job created and a 7% rebate based on new capital investments. "It was designed to encourage companies to continue to hire and invest during this challenging economic climate," Lizura said. "Both the Main Street and Invest NJ programs were put in place in a short period of time to the credit of the Legislature and Governor Corzine. We had $120 million allocated for Invest NJ and $50 million for Main Street. We've already taken applications for more than the $120 million allocated for Invest NJ, and have instituted a waiting list, and we've just started to approve our first Main Street applications. We're very excited on both of those fronts."

Finally, Lizura reminded attendees of the significant benefits of the state's Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program, as well as the new class of tax-exempt bonds, called Recovery Zone Bonds, made possible under the new stimulus bill. "New Jersey is indeed 'open for business'," he concluded, inviting everyone to visit the web site www.njeda.com for more information.

Urban Developer's Night also showcased new and current commercial and industrial projects in New Jersey. The event kicked off with cocktails and table displays, followed by dinner and the program. Brady noted that IOREBA is looking forward to hosting the event, in an expanded format, again next year.

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