(Save the date: RealShare Industrial 2012 comes to The Bankers Club, Miami, December 5 - 6.)

SADDLE BROOK, NJ- William R. Waxman of CBRE tells GlobeSt.com that worry and frustration have hit the high-water mark for many industrial real estate users in Sandy-battered New Jersey, especially in the Meadowlands and Jersey City.

“A lot of my clients in the Meadowlands and Jersey City are saying that flooding is a continuing problem, and ‘We have to get out of here. How can you help us move?”’

“Well, where would you want to go?” Waxman says he asks them.  “They all say they want to stay in the area. In New Jersey, we have the advantage of being 5 miles from New York.  If I say: You could move to Pennsylvania. They say: Not an option.”

Waxman, like other real estate executives, says he expects surging emotions to subside and the market to return to historic patterns.  “Maybe, some users who are panicky right now will actually decide they’ve had enough and they will move,” he says. “Give me two weeks for things to settle down, and then I’ll have an answer on that.”

Meanwhile, CBRE and other companies are scrambling to answer pleas for temporary, plug-and-play space for clients. “We are working hard to identify locations where clients can have office, power, internet, warehouse space as a short-term solution. So far, so good, we’ve been able to accommodate some people at sites in Paramus with generators, and at disaster centers in New York City and Pennsylvania.”

Robert C. Kossar, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle who was reached at home in Bergen County, tells GlobeSt.com that he also sees the super-storm’s most significant impact as being primarily on the logistics, storage and distribution industries.

“The suburban office market was already pretty anemic,” he says. “Still, any negative impact hurts business.” Kossar noted that the office center of Parsippany was hit hard by downed trees and power lines, and that JLL’s office in Morris Corporate Center III is without power for now.

Kossar and Waxman commended property managers for being highly prepared to handle the physical impact of the storm. “Since there was advance warning, all procedures and plans were in place,” said Kossar. “People were ready and did everything they could.”

The extent of damage was so precedent-setting, however, that both executives who have been watching it on TV – since they are unable to enter flooded areas - said the supply chain of materials and goods will be severely affected. This, in turn, will likely set back the incremental recovery of the retail market since the Great Recession, they said.

“When supply chain operators lose 2-3 days of business,” says Waxman of CBRE, “it’s devastating. But the industry is working together, which is great.  We’re all in the same boat - oops, maybe I shouldn’t use those words right now.”

Waxman says CBRE has offered to provide temporary space at its own offices in Saddle Brook for one of its client companies.

“I don’t know any place in the state of New Jersey that isn’t having problems right now,” he said, “but I think CRE will rebound,” he adds.  “Once we accept this storm as an unpreventable act of nature, I think that things are going to get back to normal.”