Camden's riverfront adds pillar of progress

The sleek, new building with floor-to-ceiling windows next to Camden's Adventure Aquarium is a landmark - the first office building to be constructed in the city in four decades without the help of taxes or tolls.

Its ribbon-cutting this Wednesday indicates that waterfront development in the country's poorest city continues to progress. But that progress remains slow, with still some need for public money.

The four-story Ferry Terminal building has just one signed lease, with Susquehanna Patriot Bank agreeing three years ago to move its Marlton office to the fourth floor and getting $620,000 in state incentives to do so.

The building's restaurant spaces remain empty. Despite spectacular Philadelphia-skyline views and terrace space, restaurants are a tough sell in a city best known for poverty and crime. The first Ferry Terminal eatery is not expected to open until next year.

Still, the Camden waterfront's master developer remains so confident in the area that he is planning a limited-service hotel next to the Ferry Terminal. And now that the 100,000-square-foot, $20 million Ferry Terminal is opening, prospective tenants are easier to find, the developer said.

Officials say the last privately funded office building built in Camden was Ferry Station in the mid-1960s. It is now senior-citizen housing.

"You're talking about doing something that hasn't been done in . . . years," said Barry Rosenberg, president of Ohio-based Steiner & Associates, the developer that controls Camden's waterfront. "People are coming down and seeing what's happening on the waterfront - and that is changing people's thought process.

"This is a 10- to 15-year project. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take baby steps."

Steiner has long wanted to construct a waterfront hotel, but shelved plans in 2004 when the Camden Redevelopment Agency tried to build a hotel downtown. Those plans died after a publication named Camden "America's Most Dangerous City," a title it shed last year.

Now Steiner is studying a waterfront hotel with 125 to 150 rooms and perhaps a small conference facility, catering to tourists and business travelers who now stay in Cherry Hill's hotels, Rosenberg said.

The company also is trying to recruit local and regional restaurateurs into the Ferry Terminal.

Waterfront development leader Thomas Corcoran said the area needed restaurants to attract more visitors.

"We need three or four restaurants before the whole thing can take off," he said, pointing to the success of Collingswood as a restaurant destination once several opened.

Corcoran said there were several reasons to be optimistic. The most tangible is the success of Victor's Pub, a sports bar that opened in March in the nearby Victor apartment building.

Tim Eliason, a manager of the pub, said profits were double what the owners had projected. Suburbanites, he said, are among the patrons.

"I get calls asking, 'How do I get there from Marlton? How do I get there from Medford Lakes?' "

The Victor's developer, Carl Dranoff, said he had finally gotten state permits to start work on his long-delayed condominium building nearby. He said he expected to begin cleaning out the former RCA building this summer and complete the building in early 2009.

Steiner also owns Adventure Aquarium, where it is building a banquet facility with views of the Philadelphia skyline and the shark tank. The RiverLink Ferry is scheduled to be moved closer to the aquarium and Ferry Terminal building.

Farther north, Gov. Corzine has said he is studying moving the Riverfront State Prison off prime real estate just upriver from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. And the Camden County freeholders have announced they would like to move the Camden County Jail out of downtown.

Not everyone on the waterfront is so cheerful. Hitesh Patel, manager of the Subway sandwich shop in the Victor building, said he felt cheated by early predictions of how quickly development would progress. But he can't pack up because of his five-year lease.

Camden's crime remains an issue, though crime in the waterfront area is low, and several police forces patrol the area.

Crime "used to be question No. 1 a couple years ago" from prospective tenants, said Marc Policarpo, a senior vice president at Binswanger Corp., the Ferry Terminal's leasing agent. "Now it's still a question, but No. 3 or 4."

Policarpo said the building's Class A office space was renting for $28.50 to $31 per square foot, which he said was comparable to other office space in South Jersey. There are agreements to lease about 60 percent of the building, he said.

Tenants are eligible for a number of tax incentives, including some unique to Camden. Susquehanna, for instance, got a $360,000 rent subsidy as part of a program to encourage investment in Camden, and a $260,000 incentive for creating jobs in New Jersey, according to the state Economic Development Authority.

The Camden incentive program was part of the state's $175 million recovery plan for the city, whose prime sponsor was Democratic State Sen. Wayne Bryant. Bryant was a paid member of the Susquehanna Bank board until the spring.

Joseph R. Lizza, Susquehanna's president and chief executive officer, said Bryant had had nothing to do with the bank's getting the incentives. The once-powerful Camden County senator was indicted on unrelated corruption charges in March and shortly after left the bank's board in "a mutual arrangement," Lizza said.

The incentives "were nice to have, but did not drive the decision-making process," Lizza said. Given that the bank will spend millions of dollars during its 10-year lease, "it really isn't a sweetheart deal from a financial point of view."

"It's more of an opportunity to have what we hope will be a signature building," said Lizza, who will move 75 employees to Camden in September. "We're a bit pioneering in what we're doing."