It's said there wouldn't be a Hoboken without the Barry family. After all, that's where, in 1970, brothers Joseph and Walter Barry founded Applied Housing Co. and embarked on revitalization projects that cemented the firm's reputation as an innovative large-scale urban developer. Some 30 years after Applied's founding, brothers David and Michael Barry continued that legacy, forming Ironstate Development, which owns and manages more than 6,000 residential units with $ 1 billion in projects in the pipeline. As co-president (with Michael) of both Applied and Ironstate, its development arm, Barry has spearheaded some of the state's largest revitalization projects, including the Shipyard and W Hoboken Hotel & Residences in Hoboken; Port Liberte in Jersey City; and Pier Village in Long Branch, now in its third phase. Barry is also a member of the boards of the New Jersey Apartment Association and Fortress Investment Group LLC, a global investment manager with an estimated $40 billion in assets as of 2010.

With a mission to be the premier developer of creative real estate assets, Peter Cocoziello started Advance Realty Group in 1979 by purchasing a vacant lot in West Orange with plans to develop his first property, a 14,000-square-foot office building. From there, the president and CEO moved onto single-family and townhomes and, ultimately, build-to-suit commercial space. Today, Advance is one of the most active and well-known development, investment and management firms in New Jersey. Cocoziello serves on a wide number of boards, including the New Jersey Network Foundation, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee and Smeal Business School at Penn State University. He's been named Developer of the Year by NAIOP, New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young and an outstanding businessman by the Somerset County Chamber of Commerce.

Steven J. Denholtz has played a big part in growing his family's company, Denholtz Associates, into what it is today. Founded by his father, Jack, in Rahway in 1956, the firm was known for its high-rise and urban renewal work during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Under Steven's stewardship since 1983, the company has grown to nearly 100 employees and doubled the square footage it owns and manages. As CEO, Steven Denholtz is responsible for the company's strategic direction, capital structure and development opportunities. He's also served as a board member for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and as treasurer and board of trustees member of NAIOP New Jersey. He is also is a member of the New Jersey Bar Association.

There aren't many major real estate deals that go through in New Jersey without the stamp of approval from Caren Franzini's office. As head of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Franzini has finalized more than $567 million in financing assistance, business incentives and tax credits, which have supported more than $1.4 billion in investments. She's served seven different governors since becoming CEO in 1994, and her influence is poised only to expand with the Grow New Jersey Assistance Program and its $200 million in incentives aimed at boosting economic development in areas beyond the state's nine Urban Transit Hubs.

As managing partner of Roseland Property Co., Carl Goldberg is quickly becoming identified with Morristown, where Roseland has opened three new properties in recent years, including the luxury 40 Park building off the town's historic Green. Last summer, Hartz Mountain Industries bought a stake in Roseland—a move that locals consider a testament to Goldberg's knowledge of multifamily real estate. Before founding the firm in 1994, he spent his entire real estate career with Bertram Associates, a prominent regional homebuilder he joined in 1979. Goldberg is past president of the Community Builders' Association and, until January, was chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, focusing on the redevelopment of the Meadowlands.

A real estate magnate and confidant of Gov. Chris Christie, Jon F. Hanson carries more than 45 years in real estate investment management experience and remains a driving force behind a series of initiatives to restart the state's economy. His influential Hanson Commission, extended for another year in August, was instrumental in developing legislation to reform Atlantic City's casino regulatory system and establishing a state-run Tourism District there. The advisory board also worked on the state tax project that helped revive the Revel casino project. Its mission remains to jumpstart lagging industries, such as gaming, entertainment and sports, that have a significant economic impact on New Jersey. As founder and chairman of the Hampshire Cos., he knows nearly every player in the investment world and was honored in August with the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Corporate Directors for his pivotal role at Hampshire and work on other boards.

"We focus hard, try to operate within our means and we keep our word. Plain, ordinary, common-sense thinking." Those ideals have served Isaac Heller well from his days as Remco Toys founder to the building of his first property—a 750,000-square-foot factory in Harrison—in the mid-20th Century. Soon after, he established I. Heller Construction Co. Inc., building distribution centers for HJ Heinz and other high-profile clients before branching out into five other states. Today, Heller Industrial Parks has more than 12.5 million square feet in New Jersey's heavily traveled Northeast Corridor, 1.5 million feet in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, 420,000 square feet in rapidly expanding Houston and a combined two million feet in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It all runs on Heller's fundamental philosophy: to build and own all of its buildings, guaranteeing total construction control.

Despite the economic downturn and instability in the real estate world, Mack-Cali Realty Corp. remains the biggest office landlord in New Jersey. But president and CEO Mitchell E. Hersh's influence extends far beyond commercial real estate. An active participant in economic development policy, particularly in North Jersey, Hersh was a member of the New Jersey Real Estate Advisory Board and served on Gov. Chris Christie's Economic Development and Growth Transition Subcommittee. He's on the board of Montclair State University and a founding member of Baruch College Newman Real Estate Institute's Real Estate Advisory Board. Additionally, he serves as chairman, president and CEO of the Gale Co. and its subsidiaries.

An industry stalwart, Charles Klatskin is currently general partner of Forsgate Industrial Partners, which owns more than nine million square feet of industrial property in New Jersey. He's also served as a managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle since it acquired Klatskin Associates in 2007. (As the name implies, the acquired company began life in 1966 as the Charles Klatskin Co. Inc.) In 1962, he became the youngest member ever admitted into the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and went on to hold several official posts there, including president of the New Jersey Chapter. Outside of real estate, Klatskin was or is currently on the boards of such institutions as the George Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Ohio State University and Englewood Hospital in Englewood. Klatskin received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Real Estate in 2000 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from NAIOP in 2001.

For the past 25 years, L. Robert Lieb has devoted his time to the development, construction, rehabilitation and management of office, retail and industrial projects—approximately four million square feet worth, located primarily in the Northeast. He founded Mountain Development Corp. in 1979, after practicing law in New York and New Jersey as co-founder of the law firm of Lieb, Wolff and Samson and currently serves as chairman and CEO. He was founder and chairman of the board of NorCrown Bank, a full-service commercial bank in Roseland; formerly served as a director of the New Jersey Council of the Multi-Housing Institute; and is cochairman of the Bryant Park Management Corp. and member of the board and executive committee of the Public Health Research Institute in Newark.

The recession hasn't been kind to anyone in the commercial sector, but under the watch of COO Vincent Marano, National Business Parks has not only weathered the storm but is poised to take full advantage of any uptick. In an October 2011 article in Princeton's U.S. 1 newspaper, Marano wrote that occupancy at the College Parks at Princeton Forrestal Center stood at 92%. And while no large blocks of space were available, the company was filling smaller spaces and had leased nearly 70,000 square feet in the first six months of last year, welcoming two new tenants and renewing or expanding leases with six current ones. Occupancy at the Southgate Center in Morristown was about 95%, with a major renovation of that property recently completed. "We're already giving thought to new construction based on the proximity of our vacant land to both the Princeton and Morristown medical centers," Marano wrote.

J. Brian O'Neill is one of the nation's foremost experts on the subject of renovating and rezoning brownfields. He founded O'Neill Properties in 1988 and today oversees one of the largest mixed-use developments in the country, the Point at Sayreville, lining up tenants for the eight-million-square-foot retail, residential and commercial venture. The O'Neill strategy of "cooperative community redevelopment" began with the rehabilitation of an abandoned paint factory on the riverbanks of Norristown, PA. Today, the firm has brought its vision of revitalization to southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Most recently, O'Neill was named Citizen of the Year by the PenJerDel Council in Philadelphia. In 2001, he received the Entrepreneur of the Year award from Ernst & Young and the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Steven J. Pozycki is the man behind Panasonic of America Corp.'s new headquarters in Newark, one of the largest commercial commitments in the city's history. Insiders say Pozycki is the one who made the deal happen, along with help from the Economic Development Authority and its tax credit program, and with Matrix Development will build Panasonic's new home. Pozycki began developing his first project, the 182-acre Morris Corporate Center business park in Parsippany, in 1981. Since that time, SJP has developed nearly 25 million square feet of projects in partnership with major public and private institutions. It also controls an additional three million square feet of strategically located office space fully permitted for future development. A Monmouth University alumnus, Pozycki serves on its board. He was awarded the Real Estate Institute's Leadership of Excellence Award for his significant contributions to the New Jersey real estate industry and is a member of the New Jersey Real Estate Advisory Board, convened in 2008 by then-Gov. Jon Corzine.

In his 12 years with Russo Development, president and CEO Edward Russo has transformed the business his father founded in 1969 into one of the most active development companies in Northern New Jersey. More than 1.7 million square feet of projects have been completed during his tenure for clients including JP Morgan Chase, NYSE Euronext, Cervalis and Credit Suisse. In addition to overseeing the company's development pipeline, Russo has negotiated more than $700 million in finance and lease transactions with various institutional lenders and tenants. Russo currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Chapter of NAIOP and the Executive Board of the Northern New Jersey Council for the Boy Scouts of America.

In weathering the recent economic downturn, David Sanzari, president and CEO of Alfred Sanzari Enterprises, has said he learned from his father, company founder Alfred Sanzari, "to always prepare for the worst. He taught us to be very conservative with what we do and how much we borrow and the size of the project we take on, and we've pretty much stuck with that." Founded in 1945, Sanzari Enterprises is one of New Jersey's leading development organizations. The company owns and manages approximately six million square feet of commercial, industrial, residential and mixed-use real estate projects in Northern New Jersey. In 2009, with the economy bottomed out, Sanzari took an innovative approach to marketing properties: he let current tenants do the talking in video testimonials. The immediate result? Two new leases at the company's Court Plaza in Hackensack totaling about 7,200 square feet.

With more than 50 years of experience in the industry, David S. Steiner has a long and distinguished history as a real estate developer, and is behind some of the largest build-to-suit office and lab projects in the US. He is chairman of Steiner Equities Group, a Roselandbased development firm specializing in industrial office parks and commercial facilities in New Jersey and 14 other states. Steiner also teamed up with his son, Douglas, in 2004 to build Steiner Studios, a $118-million state-of-the-art film and television production facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. On a broader level, he's one of the founders of NAIOP, serving as national president for two consecutive terms, and was named Developer of the Year in 1990 by the organization. Steiner's been a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey since 2003 and has been affiliated with such organizations as the State of New Jersey Economic Development Council, the State of New Jersey Commerce Commission and the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission.

Described by one developer as "close to legendary," Hartz Mountain Industries president and COO Emanuel Stern has dominated New Jersey real estate headlines in the past year for the brouhaha over the relocation of his former tenant, Panasonic Corp. The state awarded a $102.4-million incentive to Panasonic to remain in New Jersey, but it would have meant the electronics giant would move its headquarters—and some 800 jobs—from Hartz's Secaucus property to 250,000 square feet of a to-be-built office tower in Newark in 2013. Stern dug in his heels and sued the state to keep his tenant in Secaucus. He ultimately dropped the suit, but only because lawmakers agreed to the Grow New Jersey bill to bring incentives to suburbs like Hartz's Meadowlands empire. At Hartz, Stern oversees a portfolio of 38 million square feet of office, industrial, hotel and retail space in more than 200 buildings. The firm is an active player in the solar energy and data-center areas and is rapidly moving into the hot multifamily arena, acquiring a stake in Roseland Property's management arm. The two companies recently announced plans for a $450-million complex at Colgate Center on the Jersey City waterfront that will ultimately total more than a million feet of multifamily and retail. Officials believe it will be the largest rental project and one of the five tallest buildings in the state. But Stern has stated the project will move forward only if the New Jersey Economic Development Authority's Urban Hub Tax Credit residential program, suspended after depleting its $250-million allocation, is revived.

Serving as president since 1988 and adding the titles of CEO and trustee in 1994, Gerard H. Sweeney has been at the helm of Brandywine Realty Trust through several cycles, and has weathered them well. Despite continued economic challenges, the firm announced in January that it signed more than one million square feet of new and renewal leases in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. The deals included a 20,457-square-foot health-care expansion at Main Street in Voorhees and a new 15,033-square-foot lease by VERUS Claims Services at the Princeton Pike Corporate Center in Lawrenceville. Sweeney is a member of the boards of NAREIT, ULI, NAIOP and the Real Estate Roundtable. He serves as chairman of the Schuylkill River Development Corp. and Philadelphia's radio station, WHYY-FM, and is co-chair of the World Class Greater Philadelphia Initiative.

Joseph S. Taylor joined Matrix Development at its inception in 1981 at age 24. As project manager, he was responsible for directing the development of the company's then-sole investment in New Jersey, CenterPoint at 8A, an 1,800-acre assemblage of commercial, residential and industrial properties. Since becoming president and CEO of the firm in 1987, Taylor has expanded Matrix's reach throughout New Jersey and into New York and Pennsylvania while broadening its business base to include a golf-management subsidiary, an asset-recovery division and a full-service residential and construction division. Through his leadership, the company has grown into one of the most prominent real estate investment companies in the Northeast. Over the past 25 years, Matrix has developed more than 20 million square feet of commercial, industrial, mixed use, residential and retail properties.

A founder and managing principal of Normandy Real Estate Partners, Finn Wentworth has put a quote from his marketing professor at Lehigh University to good use in his ventures in commercial real estate: "High risk, high return. No risk, no return." That mantra came in handy during his work on Gov. Chris Christie's Advisory Commission on Gaming, Sports and Entertainment, where he was one of seven members tasked with looking into these businesses and offering solutions and policy recommendations. One of the partners that helped open the Chelsea Hotel in Atlantic City, Wentworth's particular areas of focus on the commission was Atlantic City casinos; today, he's considered one of the masterminds behind that market's revitalization efforts. Prior to forming Normandy, he served as president, CEO and board member of YankeeNets LLC, the holding company of the New York Yankees, New Jersey Nets and New Jersey Devils, and founded the organization's media company, the YES Network. Also active in community and philanthropic endeavors, Wentworth has been honored by several hospitals and charitable organizations.

Many know Zygi Wilf as chairman and owner of the Minnesota Vikings, but his roots in New Jersey's real estate community run deep. He is a principal of Garden Homes Development, a Short Hills-based nationwide leader in retail, commercial and private residential development that was founded by his brother and father in 1955. Wilf joined the family business after law school, and the company now owns and manages more than 60,000 apartments and built more than 40,000 for-sale homes. Subsidiary Garden Commercial Properties controls more than 26 million square feet of retail and commercial space. His family is among the founders of the American Society for Yad Vesham, supporters of a major Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, and supports a variety of other Jewish causes. In March 2011, Sports Illustrated estimated Wilf's net worth at approximately $310 million.

On CEO and principal Eric Witmondt's watch, Woodmont Properties as grown into one of New Jersey's most active developers. The firm has completed more than 600,000 square feet of commercial projects and acquisitions in the past two years and currently has more than 2,600 residential units in design or construction. Witmondt is directly responsible for the rapid expansion of the company's redevelopment, infill, multifamily and commercial development, directing its shortrange and long-range planning and strategic direction. He began his career as a broker at Cushman & Wakefield before establishing Associated Realty Inc., a leading New Jersey commercial real estate firm. In 2000, Associated merged with GVA Williams and subsequently assumed the name GVA Williams of New Jersey, with Witmondt as its CEO.