PARAMUS, NJ- Shuttered stores, for sale signs and vacant spaces inside shopping centers and strip malls have become familiar scenery for many towns across Northern and Central New Jersey. But post-recession, the bones of former big box giants like Circuit City, Pathmark and CompUSA are seeing new life this year as a new crop of retailers are beginning to set up shop, brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

“Overall we are cautiously optimistic,” says Chuck Lanyard, president of The Goldstein Group, a Paramus-based retail brokerage firm, who is noticing a bigger trend in the state’s retail real estate market. After securing several new leases throughout Bergen, Middlesex, Union and Monmouth counties, chains such as health clubs, specialty grocers and discount department stores are now moving into existing buildings which once housed big box retailers that fell into bankruptcy--and these tenants are taking advantage of deals in the marketplace, Lanyard tells me.

“The reality is that these spaces are finally being leased at a pretty good pace,” Lanyard says, explaining that landlords are offering favorable rents and concessions in order to help fill vacant storefronts in high-traffic areas. “We’ve kind of bottomed out and landlords are not going to go much lower than they have. A big box user will seriously consider making a deal, including some coming to New Jersey for the first time.”