NEWARK-While this city’s downtown rebuilding effort has madehuge strides lately—most notably with Panasonic’s decision torelocate its headquarters—a couple of smaller developments and areport noting the high cost of doing business here make it clearthe future remains cloudy.

Newark and the surrounding area is the fifth most expensiveplace in the United States for corporations to operate, says a newreport by the Princeton-based Boyd Co. New York City, a mile acrossthe Hudson, is the most expensive place of 50 metropolitan areassurveyed.

Using public data on taxes and electricity costs, and doing itsown research on employment and real estate costs, Boyd compared thecost of operating a corporate headquarters with 500 employees and100,000 square feet of space. The annual tab in New York: $47.2million.For Newark and North Jersey, it was $43.3 million.Elsewhere within the state, New Brunswick and central Jersey showedoperating costs of $42.2 million for the simulated corporation, andCherry Hill and southern Jersey had a $39.3-million annualcost.