Economic Development

South Jersey’s Surging Vibe

Economic development and tourism thrive in South Jersey’s post-COVID world.

By George N. Saliba, Contributing Writer On Sep 11, 2024

With a recently replenished beach, new resorts, boardwalk redevelopment and a record tourism year for 2024, the Wildwoods arguably exemplify a broader revitalization throughout Southern New Jersey.

“Wildwood is a classic example of the constructive demolition that [occurs] in capitalist societies, where you have a rebirth every so many years,” explains Louis M. Belasco, executive director of the Greater Wildwoods Tourism Improvement and Development Authority, noting that the Wildwoods are more family-friendly today when compared to their party-town reputations of yesteryear. He adds that the locales’ success (Wildwood, North Wildwood, West Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Diamond Beach) has been aided by an ability to diligently remain abreast of trends as well as leverage social media/internet for promotional purposes. It’s not just the Wildwoods’ beaches and boardwalk that are thriving: The convention center is booked into 2027, and, separately, construction of approximately 100 new apartment units is planned over the next year.

Much of South Jersey is experiencing similar vibes in spheres ranging from aerospace/aviation and utility infrastructure to real estate and offshore wind development. It’s all against the backdrop of overall South Jersey employment increasing 2.6% from May 2023 to May 2024, outperforming a national growth rate of just 1.7%.

Tourism

As a part of that growth, tourism is notably flourishing not just in the Wildwoods, but throughout South Jersey and the state: A March 2024 Tourism Economics report reveals that for 2023, some 120.5 million visitors came to New Jersey overall (up from 114.5 million visitors in 2022 and 96.6 million in 2021), spending $49.1 billion. While not all tourists visited the state’s 127 miles of sandy beaches or ventured into Atlantic City, the latter destination annually hosts approximately 27 million visitors, and its success has generally been on the upswing. Gaming at the city’s nine casinos is part of the equation, but so too are newer economic developments such as Island Waterpark at Showboat (opened in summer 2023) and Nobu Hotel at Caeser’s Atlantic City (opened in January 2024), as well as the ARCADE at Harrah’s Atlantic City, which debuted November 2023.

Offshore Wind

There’s more than tourism on South Jersey’s coast: Although Danish-based Ørsted infamously cancelled major plans for offshore wind development against the backdrop of supply chain and inflationary woes, a totally different company – Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind – has doubled-down on its Project 1 plans for turbines that will deliver 1,510 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, enough clean energy to power more than 700,000 homes in the state. Project 1 alone is slated to yield $1.9 billion in economic benefits to New Jersey, all while annually reducing in-state greenhouse emissions by about 4 million tons.

When asked how Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind continues to succeed, Crystal Pruitt, New Jersey external affairs lead at Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, responds to New Jersey Business Magazine: “[It’s due to our] commitment and perseverance. We knew that bringing a new industry to the state wouldn’t come without challenges. We are proud of our team, which has worked tirelessly over the last five years to develop the most competitive and deliverable projects available to New Jersey.”

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) recently issued its Record of Decision (RoD) for Atlantic Shores Project 1 and 2, with the estimated completion of all reviews and permits scheduled for this October. Pruitt says Project 1 will be shovel ready by 2025 and on course to be “the first New Jersey project to provide offshore wind energy to state residents and businesses.”

There are additional wind projects/proposals: Attentive Energy, a partnership between TotalEnergies and Corio Generation, has proposed to supply the Garden State “with up to 1,342 MW of clean renewable offshore wind energy, expected to power more than 650,000 homes and generate $3.1 billion in economic activity statewide.” And, separately, Community Offshore Wind’s proposal “would generate 1.3 GW of clean wind energy” in an area located 37 miles offshore.

Utilities

South Jersey utility infrastructure projects are likewise successfully underway at Folsom-based South Jersey Industries (SJI), a holding company with two major gas utility companies in addition to a renewable energy projects subsidiary. SJI’s utility subsidiaries – South Jersey Gas Company and Elizabethtown Gas – have spent billions of dollars replacing older cast iron and bare steel pipes with modern, plastic pipes that are more durable, less leak-and-corrosion prone and additionally permit the delivery of lower-carbon fuels, according to SJI President and CEO Mike Renna.

Renna also highlights the company’s customer service abilities, telling New Jersey Business Magazine, “There are new initiatives that utilities want to take [overall], and what I’m proud of is that at South Jersey Industries, if we are not the first, then one of the first, utilities to do all of [them]. [For example,] we are one of the first utilities to decouple, which means that we’ve separated – or decoupled – our profitability from customer usage.”

SJI is also moving forward with renewable energy: In December 2023, SJI, Captona, and RNG Energy Solutions announced they would construct one of the largest food waste-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) projects in the US. Leveraging feedstock, food waste from industrial, commercial and institutional entities as well as grease waste from restaurants, the Linden Renewable Energy (LRE) Project, based in Linden, in North Jersey, “will convert organic waste into pipeline-quality RNG that can be used for a variety of applications to displace fossil fuels.” With a groundbreaking held in April 2024, the LRE Project will convert up to 1,475 tons of waste to produce up to 3,783 MMBtu/day of RNG.

SJI says this is the “first non-utility led anaerobic digester project that will directly connect utility customers with a New Jersey-based RNG producer.” It will include SJI’s subsidiary Elizabethtown Gas blending the RNG from the project into its existing natural gas distribution system.

Real Estate

Commercial real estate is progressing in South Jersey, with a “tremendous amount” of Class A industrial building development either planned or already constructed, according to Jonathan Klear, senior vice president at NAI Mertz in Mount Laurel. While the industrial real estate market has cooled from its white-hot, pandemic-era levels, in part due to the cost of capital, deals are still proceeding.

Klear explains that current industrial real estate users can include third-party logistics firms, food companies, distribution companies and furniture companies, adding: “I received offers on almost every single property that I have, which indicates nice, healthy activity. Three years ago, I probably would have gotten four to five offers on each of these, [so] it has tapered off since then.”

The future appears bright, with Klear predicting: “It’s going to be more of the same, probably, for the next year, and then probably slowly pick up. As interest rates decrease, that will hopefully create some sigh of relief. If the debt markets open up a bit more, that will create easier transactions for a lot of buyers and sellers.”

Activity is also occurring in the higher education real estate realm: Rutgers University-Camden has broken ground on the $60 million Cooper Street Gateway Project, which includes renovating 14 vacant 19th century buildings and constructing a three-story facility along the 400 Block of Cooper and Lawrence Streets in Camden.

Aerospace and Aviation

Aerospace/aviation is another element that’s alive and well in South Jersey. The first building at the National Aviation Research and Technology Park (NARTP) in Atlantic County opened in 2019 and focuses on facilitating research and development, innovation and commercialization of emerging aviation technologies. With General Dynamics Information Technology serving as the anchor tenant alongside 11 other tenants in the 66,000-square-foot building, seven buildings are ultimately slated for the site. The second building had its groundbreaking in October 2023 and will be available for tenants in the fourth quarter of 2025. The 58-acre campus in Egg Harbor Township is near the Federal Aviation Administration’s William J. Hughes Technical Center as well as the Atlantic City International Airport.

Lauren H. Moore, president of the Atlantic County Economic Alliance, says, “[These developments are] exciting for us because aviation is starting to shift to electric aircraft; vertical takeoff and landing, kind of like a helicopter.” He adds that NARTP is also working with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) (e.g., “drones”) as well as advanced air mobility.

Also in the aviation realm is the Beyond Aviation flight school at Atlantic City International Airport, which opened in 2021. The Atlantic Logistics Center is an additional, major airport project that is slated to create 2,000 jobs over the next decade and feature 3.5 million square feet of air cargo space on an approximately 400-acre lot.

Conclusion

With South Jersey’s economy and economic development on the move, SJI’s Renna says, “[South Jersey] is taking advantage of its proximity to the sand [via tourism]. However, I think what you’re seeing is a transformation moving from sort of this glass-based [manufacturing] industrial market or sector [of the past], to healthcare, higher education [today].” He concludes, “I think energy is a big part of it, and SJI is one of the catalysts, particularly with what we’re doing on the non-utility side and the investments that we’re making to accelerate the energy transition.”

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