According to New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan, “The Main Street portfolio of products that were tools we came up with coming out of the pandemic – continue to be open for business.”

During a recent, wide-ranging interview with NJBIZ, Sullivan hit on a number of different topics, issues and areas of focus for the NJEDA as 2024 gets into full swing. In this week’s NJBIZ, you can read what he had to say about the innovation economy, artificial intelligence (AI), clean energy/offshore wind and more.

Here, Sullivan offers insights about how New Jersey businesses are emerging from the pandemic and the efforts NJEDA is taking to address challenges.

An example of the types of programs NJEDA offers can be found with the $100 million NJ Capital Access Fund. Launched last November, the program aims to provide working capital loans with competitive interest rates to help support New Jersey small businesses.

Sullivan noted that NJEDA is leveraging federal funding through the American Rescue Plan via a third-party nonprofit, Calvert, which has a nearly three-decade-long track record of supporting community and economic development organizations.

“To really focus on lending for small and micro-businesses throughout the state,” Sullivan explained. “That’s a big pool of capital. We’re starting to see applications come in and come together for that.”

“One other thing I think we will likely be doing in the first half of the year are pilot initiatives around how can folks who own small businesses but who rent their space – go from renters to owners,” said Sullivan. “It’s kind of an evergreen challenge in the small business world. If you are at the mercy of a landlord, your rent goes up — all of a sudden, you’ve got a big problem. Not everybody wants to buy their building – not everybody wants to buy their space. Some people like renting – they like that flexibility. But, particularly for the smallest businesses – for Black-, Latino-owned businesses, women-owned businesses – the ability to get together a down payment and afford to be able to buy your own space to control your own destiny – is out of reach for too many people. So, we’ll likely have some offerings around that in the first part of the year.”

Changing landscape

The conversation shifted to the topic of downtowns and Main Streets as well as commercial buildings post-pandemic. Post-COVID, circumstances have changed regarding how people work with the rise of remote and hybrid options post-COVID.

“The office space challenge is probably – other than some of the actual public health and learning loss challenges – one of the longer tail, sort of, permanent effects of COVID,” Sullivan explained. “Hybrid work is here to stay it seems, which has some upsides.”

But he stressed that it has also been a challenge for cities like Newark, Paterson and Jersey City, which have central business districts.

“You continue to see pretty high vacancy rates and smaller renewals and all that. We have had some significant efforts in partnership with the Legislature with things like our ART Program – which stands for activation, revitalization, transformation,” said Sullivan. “Trying to get more people, more excuses, or more reasons to be downtown. The initial pilot was in Newark and Atlantic City. We will probably broaden that out through this year.”

Sullivan said the aftermath of the pandemic placed an even greater focus and emphasis on mixed-use and residential development.

“One of the reasons, I think, Jersey City has done pretty well coming through the pandemic – is their downtown has both residential and offices. So, if you are a restaurant there, you get two streams of customers,” Sullivan explained. “Mayor (Ras) Baraka has been a great supporter of building new housing – not just in downtown but all throughout Newark. Gov. [Phil] Murphy’s been a great supporter right along with him for things like our Aspire Program – trying to get more new, modern – both market rate and affordable housing built in a place like Newark to support more, if not 24/7, then certainly more than nine-to-five activity in those places.

“I think you will see, particularly as interest rates start to moderate here and eventually come down – lots of new construction starts on multifamily housing with the right mix of affordability in there,” Sullivan projected.

Retooling Garden State manufacturing

Another major area of focus for the NJEDA has been on manufacturing, with programs such as the New Jersey Manufacturing Voucher Program (NJMVP). That effort awards vouchers to purchase equipment that will help manufacturers’ businesses grow.

“We will end up making awards to a little more than 250 manufacturers, which is a lot. That’s a sizable voucher program. It’s a matching program. We are helping businesses invest in themselves. It’s not just giving away free money,” Sullivan explained. “There is subsidy. There is grant money. But businesses have to match that with their own funds. And really helping manufacturers retool and get ready for whatever’s next in their industry – we think is a really prudent investment. That’s why Gov. Murphy continued to fund it in last year’s budget, which means we can do a second round of applications – and hopefully fund another crop of projects there. So, we are really excited about that.”

Sullivan also noted the program has great geographical range and reach — touching most of, if not all, of the Garden State’s 21 counties.

“You have seen the manufacturing sector step up. There’s great legislative support,” Sullivan continued. “Sen. [Linda] Greenstein [D-14th District] and Sen. [Michael] Testa [R-1st District], who co-chair the Manufacturing Caucus, are big supporters of that funding and that initiative – on a bipartisan basis. So, it’s going really well.”

You can read more from NJBIZ’s interview with NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan in the the Jan. 22 issue of NJBIZ, as well as what he had to say about the state’s burgeoning film and television production sector on the occasion of the Sundance Film Festival.