Many real estate executives have predicted a flurry of new project applications will be generated with the programs.

"This puts the right tools in the hands of New Jersey government," Cushman & Wakefield's vice chairman Robert Rudin tells GlobeSt.com. "I think there will be an enormous tidal wave of activity, because there is an enormous backlog of projects waiting right now for this legislation."

Rudin noted the frustrating wait for developers and consultants through a long and torturous legislative process that had many twists and turns over the past year. "Now, government will be correctly incentivising the kind of behavior that supports growth," he said.

Under the Christie administration, $2.1 billion in incentives has already been approved since 2010, according to the New Jersey Policy Perspective think tank. That organization's president Gordon MacInnes has been a persistent critic of the tax breaks, saying they have only “marginal effects” on companies' location decisions.

However, business groups and real estate interests believe the incentive programs are the key to generating more development in a state that continues to struggle overall to create and retain jobs.

The bill - heavily amended during legislative negotiations - creates extra incentives in the state's four poorest cities: Camden, Trenton, Passaic and Paterson. In some cases, it would provide up to $100,000 per job created in incentives.

Provisions that would have required prevailing wages for workers at projects receiving incentives and giving extra incentives to re-purpose abandoned hospital buildings were removed at the governor's insistence before the legislative chambers each gave final approval to the measure last week.

“Jobs aren't Republican or Democrat,” said Democratic State Senate prudent Steve Sweeney at the bill-signing. “They're jobs. And people in this state need jobs. What we've done here is created a bill for the entire state. Not just one region,” Sweeney said.