At the same time, value grocers like Aldi are also gaining speed in the Garden State, says Scott Sher, director of real estate at Katz & Associates, a national retail advisory firm. “Over the last couple years, retailers have been taking advantage of the current market and they are getting deals that haven’t been able to get in the past,” he tells me, noting that even small tenants such as Dollar General have been expanding their operations based on the high demand for affordable goods.

And despite the recession, health clubs and gyms have been “flourishing,” Lanyard says. Landlords who were once turned off by having a fitness chain in a shopping center due to parking and noise concerns have reconsidered. The Goldstein Group has recently brokered leases for popular chains like Retro Fitness, LA Fitness or Planet Fitness, who offer low monthly membership rates. “People may not be buying as many clothes as they used to or taking as many vacations, but they are belonging to health clubs,” he says, observing that health club chains are offering an inexpensive alternative to other pricier gyms. “The reason they are flourishing so much in this kind of economy is that people are relating to the importance of keeping in good health, and at the same time, relieving a lot of stress.”

With the New Jersey retail availability rate holding the line at 8% statewide compared to 15% across the nation according to the Goldstein Group, Lanyard says he is “pleased” to see that landlords are finally lowering their rents considerably in order to make deals, especially if the property is in a good location, like a highway retail corridor with over 50,000 cars a day.

Given its close proximity to New York City, major highways and public transportation, Lanyard says the strongest retail market in the state is Bergen County, highlighting Paramus’ Route 4 and Route 17 corridors. “It has the highest retail sales in the state, has the best demographics and has the highest retail sales in any of the zip codes in the United States,” he says, noting that the area sees “tremendous activity” despite the Bergen Blue Law requiring all stores to be closed on Sunday.

In Bergen alone, according to the Goldstein Group, JoAnn Fabrics took a 30,000-square foot building formerly occupied by CompUSA on Route 17 in Paramus. The building--vacant for more than two years--is near the entrance of the Paramus Park Mall. In addition, The Edge Fitness leased 20,000 square feet of space located inside a former Drug Fair on Route 202 in Oakland. “Those were good deals for spaces that were sitting for a good year or two,” Lanyard says.

Though asking rents for these retail spaces tend to vary based on location and square footage, prices in Northern and Central New Jersey have dipped, but not as drastically as the rest of the country, Sher explains. In addition to location, Lanyard adds that asking rents also depend on the condition of the building itself. “When you are dealing with national tenants, often, there has to be a lot of money spent on the space itself in order to accommodate the tenant,” he says.

While great progress has been made in the market, the retail recovery still has a long way to go, others say. The loss of large anchor supermarkets like A&P and Pathmark may be causing surrounding satellite stores to suffer, explains Richard J. Brunelli, president of Old Bridge-based RJ Brunelli & Co. Inc. He mentioned that landlords have been cutting rents by 20% to 30% and offering other incentives as a means to lure large tenants back to anchor spaces. “There really are some great properties out there in Northern and Central New Jersey,” Brunelli says, predicting that very few ‘ground up’ developments will be constructed in the foreseeable future. “There will come a time where the most choice spaces will be leased up and then retailers will miss the boat if they don’t get back out there if they don’t secure spaces now.”