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Hotel Booking Realtors say proximity to a train station boosts the value of a home. Chatham and Madison, two towns served by NJ Transits Midtown Direct service to New York, saw the largest increases in home value in Morris County through the 1990s.

Hotel Demidoff is a modern hotel located by Lima metro station, less than a kilometre from the Central Train Station and two kilometres from the...

Travel Agency Cynthia Germansky of Madison said her family moved from Chatham to Madison four years ago to allow her husband easier access to the Madison train station for his daily commute to New York City.

The hotel is located near the central station, airport and the train station The hotel is only a short distance to the fashion shopping district and main tourist attractions.

Cheap Hotel Even though Chatham has train service along the same rail line as Madison, "having the train station closer is better," she said.

The hotel is situated in Manchester city centre, five minutes from the train station and 2 minutes from the coach station.

Flight Booking Madison also offered a more lively town center and access to the YMCA, shopping and other activities, Germansky added.

Filoxenia hotel is situated near the National Museum and Victoria Square metro station and 500m from Larissa (international train station), with easy access to everything worth seeing in Athens.

Travel Agent Nearly 175 years after the railroads first rumbled into Morris County's quiet valleys, residents such as Germansky are finding that living in the villages and towns centered by train stations is a convenient option to highway travel for work or other activities.

The InterCity Hotel Rostock is a modern hotel situated in the city centre, 50 metres from the main train station and one kilometre from the old town....

Hotel Chicago "Emphatically yes. The train is impacting where and how much people pay for a home," said Debby Hennessey, an agent with ReMax Townsquare of Chatham. "People ask me for homes that will allow them to walk to the train station."

Online Booking That urge for convenience is driving the plans of several Morris towns to develop downtown areas near NJ Transit train stations with new homes, parking and retail or office development. At the same time, officials said, the value is rising for homes and nearby property in the towns where train service is available.

Travel Health Insurance Recent entries on the Garden State Multiple Listing Service, a clearinghouse for homesellers, showed three-bedroom homes in Chatham, for example, being offered at $335,000 to $499,000, four-bedroom homes from $349,000 to $570,000, and five-bedroom homes offered at $799,000 to more than $1.2 million. All the homes listed were being offered at prices well above Morris County's 2000 median house value of $257,400, according to the 2000 Census.

Hotel Reservation Karen Wells of Dover said she and her husband Paul moved to Dover four years ago because the town offers easy transportation options. He was a law student in Newark, she said, and took NJ Transit daily to school.

London Hotel Booking "The train was a factor in our choice of Dover," she said.

Discount Travel The family gave up an apartment in Parsippany to move to their first home in Dover, Karen Wells said. Even though Paul Wells now drives to his law office in Summit because his practice requires him to be on the road during the day, they are looking for a larger home in Dover for more room for their three children, she said.

Orlando Hotel The shift of people and development attention is also being driven by the need of state and local officials to meet the goals the state's development and redevelopment plan, which calls for focusing building activity in town or urban centers.

Booking Agency Jeffrey Nadell, director of the northeast region urban development department for K. Hovnanian Co., the state's largest homebuilder, said there are more opportunities for partnerships between municipalities and developers now. He said Hovnanian has a two-decade history of reworking blighted urban sites, but in his newly created position he is reviewing many requests from towns to explore development of such properties.

International Travel Medical In Morris County, Dover, Morristown and Netcong are working on plans to revitalize the areas near their train stations in partnership with state agencies and private developers, plans that include a core of new housing.

New York Hotel There is a certain irony: Many of the towns seeking to use public transportation as a catalyst for economic redevelopment - Morristown, Dover, Netcong - grew up around the train stations or other transportation structures in the county's early days. Those towns were the work centers and mill centers, the homes of iron works and other sites of industry and commerce.

Online Travel Booking Such places, along with larger cities like Newark and Camden, were often left behind in the flight to the suburbs that are now being spurned on some level because of the difficulty of travel.

Travel Medical Insurance "We are moving back into the places that we once moved away from," Hennessey said.

Miami Hotel "(Chatham) Township was the most popular a few years ago," she said. "Large homes, large lots. Now the borough is at a premium."

Air Deccan Booking The change is due to the availability of the borough's train station, Hennessey said. Close proximity to the station "is a high priority on the list of what features I am asked to look for."

Las Vegas Nevada Travel Chatham and Madison, two towns served by NJ Transit's Midtown Direct service to New York, saw the largest increases in home value in Morris County through the 1990s. In Chatham, the median home value in 2000 was $376,900, compared to $253,200 in 1990. In Madison, the median value in 2000 was $362,400, compared to $247,800 in 1990. Countywide, the median house value rose to $257,000 in 2000 from $216,400.

Las Vegas Nv Hotel While the great American love affair with the automobile has not ended - 81 percent of Morris County workers still drive alone to work, according to the 2000 Census - things are changing.

Hotel Florence Booking Online The Census showed that six northeast counties, part of the state's former industrial core, including Morris, saw a 6.9 percent growth in population in the 1990s.

Orlando Travel While there are numerous factors in that shift, the desire to live closer to public transportation, especially the stations served by the Midtown Direct train to New York City, has become a key factor, residents, real estate agents, developers, and state and local officials said.

Hilton Hotel Transit ridership has been increasing nationwide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation.

Booking Delta Com John Ciaffone, president of TransOptions, a Morris County transit advocacy group, said the frustration with long commutes and the ability of being able to enjoy activities like shopping or cultural events makes transit-villages attractive to state residents.

Travel Insurance Online "The key factor is convenience of transportation," he said.

London Hotel At the same time, he said, there is the failed promise of the projects planned to relieve car traffic. For example, a Route 15 bypass at Lafayette village in Sussex County has been discussed for 35 years, and might not be built for 20 more, he said. That's a 55 to 60 year wait for one project, he said.

Online Hotel Booking "The reality is that more highways are near capacity," Ciaffone said.

Travel Insurance The mere promise of public transportation can move home buyers, he said. Homes in Sparta were sold on the idea that passenger rail service would be coming to the region, he said. But that project, passenger service on the Susquehanna, New York and Western rail line, is still in the planning stages.

Paris Hotel Real estate agents said that if they mention the phrase "close to train" in an advertisement, they receive more interest.

Airline Booking "It generates phone calls. Next to schools, commuting is number two," said Suzanne Krouse, manager of the Gallo & DeCroce real estate office in Parsippany.

Travel Trailer The drive for homeowners to get closer to train stations is so strong, Krouse said, it is hard to get people to look for a place to live west of Parsippany.

San Francisco Hotel Her colleague, Bud Newcomer, a 15-year veteran salesman, said NJ Transit created a real opportunity with Midtown Direct.

Air Ticket Booking "'Close to transit' gives you a boost in this area," he said. "People buy homes in this area because of the price and access to New York City. They take the train, Midtown Direct. It's a big plus. Anything that will get people out of their cars."

Cheap Travel Newcomer said he expects that trend to grow as NJ Transit completes projects including the Secaucus transfer, a $450 million station near the Meadowlands that will allow rail passengers from four NJ Transit lines to connect with other lines with direct access to New York City. The station is expected to open this year.

Bangkok Hotel Ken Miller of NJ Transit said that daily ridership on the Midtown Direct has grown from 5,050 in 1996 when the service to New York City was started, to 13,300 this month, a 163 percent increase. Midtown Direct services starts in Dover and cuts about 20 minutes off the trip to New York.

Music Booking Lucy Anticoli, a sales agent for Hubley Realty in Boonton, said she spoke recently to a client seeking a home that would give him and his wife access to a train station. He works in Morristown, and she works in New York, she said.

Travel And Tourism Access to transit also boosts the value of the homes that are sold, she said. A busy area for her is Montville, she said, because of the Towaco train station.

New York City Hotel Home values in Montville, are also among the highest in the county. The Census shows that the median home value in Montville rose from $281,700 to $336,600 in 10 years.

Air Asia Ticket Booking "It's the convenience of transit that makes the difference. Mention it in an ad, and the calls increase," Anticoli said.

Los Angeles Travel Addressing the needs of commuters and the housing and other development needs of interested towns is at the heart of the state's transit-oriented development programs.

Cancun Hotel The transit-village program, which includes Morristown, is part of the state Department of Transportation, while the transit-friendly development program in Dover and Netcong is sponsored by NJ Transit.

Hotel Booking Florence "The program was designed to assist willing communities with creating transit supportive land use plans and to get them thinking about how to encourage transit-oriented development and 'smart growth' at and surrounding our rail stations," said NJ Transit project manager Vivian Baker.

Business Travel The state program was funded by a grant from the Federal Highway Administration. Eleven municipalities, including Hoboken, Bayonne, Hackensack, Plainfield, Red Bank and Trenton, were in the first round.

Atlantic City Hotel The overall goals call for additional housing, parking and economic development around the train stations in those towns.

Indian Railway Online Ticket Morristown's plans calls for 226 housing units, 8,000 square feet for retail and 780 parking spaces, including 400 for commuters.

Adventure Travel Dover's plans are not so firm, but consultants showed models last month that could include 300 housing units, including rentals, 600 parking spaces and the potential to develop several town-owned parcels into retail or office space.

Seattle Hotel Netcong's plans are in the early study stage, administrator Marvin Joss said. He said the borough is looking for a good mix of residential, retail and office development near the train station South Orange's transit-oriented development has been cited by numerous planning organizations as an example of how transit-friendly development works.

Booking Buddy Com Village manager John Gross said the town developed the plan a decade ago after there were more vacant stores on the downtown streets than businesses.

Yahoo Travel The township's plan, later coupled with NJ Transit's plan to redevelop its station, called for a housing element, the development of a movie theater/entertainment center, getting a top-notch food store downtown, and a hotel element that has not yet materialized, Gross said.

Discount Hotel Deal The housing was planned as luxury townhomes and rental units downtown, he said. Of the planned 250 units, 125 apartments have been built, and rents run from $1,800 to $3,000 a month, he said.

Room Booking Software The draw is the transit element, he said. Ridership from the nearby station, which offers Midtown Direct service, has jumped from 600 to 700 a day in 10 years, with 2,300 riders now in both the morning and evening rush hours.

Travel Guide At a recent public meeting in Dover on the transit project, residents expressed concern that more housing would add more students to the town's 3,000-student school system.

Florida Hotel But consultant Jim Constantine said that the types of housing transit-related projects tend not to draw young families with children. The homes that could be built in Dover would be townhomes or apartments, all aimed at attracting upper-income residents who would not have children living at home.

Seattle Booking Agency The target area in Dover is in and around the 246-space Crescent Field commuter parking lot. Constantine said homes there could be centered on a parking structure and would have no lawns, a feature that might discourage families with children from living there.

Travel Nurse The 2000 Census showed that only 30.7 percent of the homes with married couples in Morris County reported having children under 18 at home. A larger percentage of married couples, 32.1 percent, reported having no children, while 29.5 percent of residents said they live alone, and 3.7 percent reported they were unmarried partners.

Dubai Hotel In Clifton, the new 206-unit Riverwalk townhouse project has been attracting professional couples with no children at home. Half the project's residents walk to the train station, said Sean Mulhall, Riverwalk manager.

Booking Institution In Morristown, the availability of transportation options helped Georgetowne, a 10-unit townhome complex, attract a professional clientele willing to pay from $400,000 to $1 million for an in-town residence, said Patrick O'Neill, president of the builder, Fenix Investment and Development Co.

Travel Channel "Ease of transportation is a big issue," O'Neill said. Six of the units have been sold, he said, and the buyers are professional people who have no children at home and who must travel for business.

San Diego Hotel The convenience of the Morristown train station, major highways and a direct trip to Newark International Airport are important to the buyers, he said.

Booking Chatham County Jail Just as important is the lifestyle offered in an urban setting such as Morristown. Access to shopping and cultural activities, both in Morristown and New York, are important factors, O'Neill said.

Ft Lauderdale Travel "It's the convenience of lifestyle," he said. "People value the proximity of places that they don't need a car to get to."

Hotel Denver He said many of the buyers at Georgetowne left substantial, single-family homes in suburban areas to move to Morristown.

Indian Railway Booking As a result the two-bedroom homes at Georgetowne are well-appointed, elegant homes, he said. Typically townhomes attract first-home buyers, he said, but with an aging population and with Baby Boomers looking to get out of the large homes they once needed for their families, projects such as Georgetowne become possible.

Travel Reward Credit Card O'Neill said that projects such as his help increase real estate values in the area. Other property owners see what is being created, and begin to spend more money on their property and the action attracts others willing to develop adjacent properties, he said.

Tokio Hotel "This is an opportunity for Morristown," O'Neill said. "People are not waiting."

Cruise Booking By Michael Daigle
Daily Record - 6/25/2002

Topic: Trains

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