Interview: Jose Lozano, President CEO, Choose New Jersey

New chapter

New Jersey and its southern region are entering a new chapter of growth and opportunities

Jose Lozano

President & CEO – Choose New Jersey

How has Choose New Jersey helped stimulate economic activity over the past year? In the past year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the creation of Choose New Jersey. We had anticipated and wanted our 10th anniversary to be our strongest year, while it proved to be the most challenging. Yet, we can still put a feather in our cap and be extremely proud of the success we had. We were able to convince 33 companies to call New Jersey home in the middle of a pandemic. That in itself was quite significant. Over our 10-year life span, we have attracted over $6.2 billion worth of capital investments, 19,000 new and retained jobs and assisted 300 companies in relocating or expanding within the state. The pandemic gave folks who were not as familiar with New Jersey the opportunity to see first-hand what we have taken for granted for so long: It’s a great place to raise a family. New Jersey’s residential market for singlefamily homes is up 38% year over year because we saw so many folks needing more space and wanting to be in the suburbs to spread out a bit more. People have really started to see some of the things that we all love so much about New Jersey.

What do you see as the most significant economic developments in the South Jersey region? The wind port that the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and Gov. Phil Murphy announced less than a year ago will play a pivotal role in South Jersey. South Jersey is a critical cog in the machine of the governor’s goal to be using 100% clean energy by 2050. We believe a whole industry will be born because of it.

A decade from now, offshore wind will emerge as one of New Jersey’s top industries, and no one will be able to have a conversation on clean energy investment in the United States without mentioning South Jersey’s wind port. It will generate thousands of jobs at the port and in the region. The supply chain that feeds the interest in that field will absolutely want to move into South Jersey. There are residual components within this niche that will also want to be much closer to that port. We are unable to put our finger on the exact residual benefit but we are confident it will prove substantial.

In addition to the port, logistics, distribution and manufacturing have always been strong in South Jersey and they are only becoming stronger. What we saw in the pandemic was that companies were too reliant on having their entire operations in one location. We are starting to see companies realizing that they need to diversify their locations and their supply chain to ensure that any future disruptions will not hamper it. That represents an opportunity for South Jersey, which has much more significant land availability, reasonable, affordable price points and easy access to the ports and highways.