Despite the real estate slumpor perhaps because of itfactory-to-residential conversions are on the rise statewide.

New Jersey has long had more than its share of industrial eyesores, from bleak factories to sprawling warehouses. These days, those gritty, lifeless structures are giving way to hip and happening residential complexes. The trend started a few years back in Camden, Newark, and Hoboken, and now is leaving its mark on Jersey City and Trenton.
Developers say adaptive reuses of industrial buildingsor simply, conversionsare attractive for several reasons. One is affordability. Where else can you get something nice for $200,000?" asks Michael Goldstein, a principal in HHG Development Associates in Trenton, whose successful conversions include the Cracker Factory in Trenton. The price point here is similar to what you can purchase in a twenty-year-old 'purpose-built' plain vanilla condominium." Which leads to another reason: What we're selling are breathtakingly beautiful, architecturally interesting apartments in a real community," Goldstein says. These are incredible design-forward spaces."

Architect John Hatch, of the Trenton firm Clarke Caton Hintz, echoes this sentiment. There's a great stock of interesting but run-down and empty buildings in every city in the state," says Hatch, who teamed with Goldstein, along with third partner David Henderson, to ride the urban reuse wave in Trenton. There's a renewed interest among home buyers for a denser urban center," he says. The people who are buying are sometimes first-home buyers, but certainly not always. The common thread is that they're people who are looking for an interesting space at a good price in a walkable community."