NJ TRANSIT HUB PERSPECTIVE | SUMMER 2018
Overall asking rents
Asking rental rates in the suburban New Jersey office market
continued to lag their peers in the urban and suburban transit
hub markets. The suburban average overall asking rental rate
was less than $25.00 per square foot at year-end 2017, while the
overall transit hub rental rate was nearly $32.00 per square foot.
This nearly $7.00 per square foot difference in rents between
the suburban and transit hub markets represented the largest
discrepancy in more than five years.
Amenity-packed Class A buildings in transit hub markets remain
in demand by office users, which had helped to maintain their
asking rents. These high-end work environments are being used
as employee retaining and recruiting tools by tenants occupying
them. With an average asking Class A rental rate of nearly $40.25
per square foot, Hoboken/Jersey maintained the highest rental
rate among the transit hub markets. Class A buildings in proximity
to Newarkâs Penn Station increased 1.4 percent from 2016 to
nearly $33.40 per square foot at year-end 2017. Asking rental
rates in the two largest suburban transit hubs, Metropark and
Princeton, were at $33.66 per square foot and $29.22 per square
foot, respectively. A relatively empty speculative construction
pipeline combined with the persistent appetite for space in transit
hub markets are forecasted to exert upward pressures on Class A
asking rental rates in 2018.
$26.00
$24.00
$28.00
$30.00
$32.00
$34.00
$24.95
$23.68
$23.24
$22.00
$20.00
2013
2014
Overall Transit Hub Market
2015
Urban Transit Hubs
2016
Suburban Transit Hubs
Suburban NJ
2017