Every major city around the county has been working toward revamping its urban core to house more residents, but few have done it better than Jersey City. In fact, Jersey City is the downtown multifamily construction champion of the East Coast, with the 8th-most impressive transformation of the decade.
According to a recent analysis by StorageCafe of Yardi Matrix data, the country’s major cities experienced a resurgence of apartment construction in their central neighborhoods over the last decade.
Overall, StorageCafe found that, across the 100 cities analyzed, about 391,000 downtown apartments were built from 2013 to present day, representing 37% of the total inventory of multifamily units in those areas.
The rebirth of the American downtown as a place to live comes in response to people’s changing attitudes and lifestyle preferences, as per the data. Walkability has gotten priority over car dependency, and proximity to jobs, shops and entertainment is particularly important for a large group of people.
Some key highlights that brought Jersey City’s city center to the top:
- High-flying Jersey City increased its downtown apartment inventory by 60% over the past decade, with more than 10,000 new apartments;
- The best year for downtown apartment construction in Jersey City was 2017, when almost 3,000 new apartments were built. However, while office workers aren’t yet returning in droves, people still seem interested in living in downtown Jersey City, which has another 1,200 new apartments currently under construction with completion dates spanning approximately two years;
- Additionally, urban cores are becoming the place to be for an increasing number of renters, and the need for more space transferred to downtown areas as well. Jersey City’s downtown area saw the addition of almost 390,000 square feet of self storage space from 2013 to 2022.
