JERSEY CITY, NJ— With the official opening July 10 of the 350-room Hyatt Regency Jersey City On The Hudson, this riverfront municipality has purportedly taken yet another step forward in its quest for recognition as a most viable Garden State venue for New York’s corporate and financial masses huddled just minutes across the river in Lower Manhattan. Developed as a collaboration between Hyatt Development Corp. and Cranford, NJ-based Mack– Cali Realty Corp., the $102-million lodging and convention property is being billed as “the first luxury hotel to service the rapidly growing Jersey City financial community. Certainly, the new Hyatt Regency marks the first hotel-development venture for Mack– Cali, owner of Harborside Financial Center (which now encompasses the new facility). As noted by Hyatt Development Corp. Chairman Nicholas Pritzker, “The Hyatt Regency Jersey City is positioned to serve as a bridge between [the financial and corporate communities of]New York and New Jersey.” As such, he said only half-jokingly to Steve White, the new property’s general manager, “We expect big things [from this property, [so]we’ll be watching your numbers.” In addition to a host of past and present state and local political notables in attendance for the ceremonial ribbon-cutting, including New Jersey Governor James McGreevey and Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham, Mack– Cali Realty Corp. CEO Mitchell Hersh was on hand to note, “The hotel brings Harborside Financial Center another step closer to becoming Jersey City’s ‘city within a city,’ providing our tenants and other area businesses with valuable conference, meeting and catering services.” Detailed as “the only full-service hotel on the New Jersey shoreline with easy access to New York City [less than 15 minutes via land or water], the new Hyatt Regency offers: high-speed telecommunications/Internet access; a signature restaurant; more than 20,000 square feet of meeting and conference space, including a 5,100-square-foot ballroom and a 600-square-foot boardroom; and unimpeded views of the Manhattan skyline from all guestrooms and suites. Indeed, it was widely contended the advent of the Hyatt Regency Jersey City inexorably adds to the economic revitalization under way in Jersey City; a revitalization listing among its many components a new waterfront walkway alongside the hotel and the overall Harborside complex. Underscoring the hotel’s strategic location is the fact it is less than 15 minutes from Newark International Airport, and is served almost on-site by NY/NJ PATH trains, a trans-river ferry service operated by New York Waterways, and convenient connectivity to the new “light rail” system serving this part of Jersey City and the surrounding municipalities. Finally, if it seemed much of the festivities and commentary surrounding the opening of the hotel sounded like a blatant pitch to business interests inviting them to relocate from New York City to the western banks of the Hudson, that’s only because that’s precisely what it was. Mayor Cunningham, Governor McGreevey, REIT chieftain Hersh and— to an extent— even Hyatt’s Pritzker took turns espousing the advantages of this Hudson County locale, noting its ready employment pool/labor force and more-than-ample space available for business growth and expansion…space priced considerably lower per square foot than much of that now being occupied across the river in The Big Apple. White, the hotel’s general manager, wrapped up this line of thinking when he maintained, “This latest landmark Hyatt development…look[s]forward to partnering with local businesses and our growing financial community to make Jersey City a true destination for business and leisure travelers [from around]the country and the world.”
Hyatt Regency Jersey City