Mack-Cali dips toe in residential market with Jersey City rental

New Jersey office landlord Mack-Cali Realty, is partnering with Hoboken-based Ironstate Development to develop two luxury towers with 500 rental units on the Jersey City waterfront, the Wall Street Journal reported, in an effort to diversify it’s predominantly commercial office portfolio as the market shifts towards residential.

“What they’re doing, I think it’s very smart. At the moment, the market clearly shows more demand for residential than for office,” said Jamie LeFrak, a principal at the LeFrak Organization, a major developer in Jersey City.

The towers will span two city blocks the Journal said, currently the site of vacant parking lots. Mack-Cali is aiming to break ground on the development in the last quarter of 2012.

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“This an opportunity to take advantage of land we already owned and to grow the business by putting that land to work in a sector of the real-estate market where there is very strong demand and where we expect it to be…profitable for us,” said Mitchell Hersh, CEO of Mack-Cali, told the Journal.

Though this is the company’s fist foray into multi-family development in 10 years, it may not be the last. Hersh said other multi-family projects may be announced soon. [WSJ]