Standing in the entryway to Lua, the pan-Latin eatery that is Hoboken's it spot of the moment, David Barrry surveys the restaurant like a conquistador who has just landed on maiden soil.
For better or worse, the metaphor is apt for Barry, the 39-year-old fast-talking Jersey boy who, along with his family, has perhaps done more than anyone else to shape Hoboken into the hip city overflowing with New York's young and the restless that it is today.
Lua sits within the Shipyard, a community on the banks of the Hudson River that the Barry family company, Applied Development, began building in 1997. When completed, it is expected to have about 1,160 upscale residences, a studio apartment will set you back nearly $1,700 a month, and it already boasts such high-end tenants as the Sparrows wine shop, King's supermarket, the Hoboken Historical Museum, and Lua. It even has its own ferry terminal. In 1832 a visiting New Yorker wrote of this area that, "It is hardly possible to imagine one of greater attraction."
But Barry did. And if everything goes as planned, in September of next year Applied will be putting the finishing touches on Hoboken's very own 25-story W Hotel and Residences, the latest addition to the cabal of dark and elegant albergos that have become a symbol of au courant luxe. It'll be the first W of its kind on the East Coast, with a mix of traditional hotel rooms and apartments for purchase.
"I'm not going to say we wouldn't have gotten the hotel in the future," Hoboken Mayor David Roberts says. "But there is no way we would have gotten it now without David Barry." Not too bad for a guy who has yet to turn 40.
When you meet David Barry for the first time, you quickly forget that you're talking to a developer who was born with a silver shovel in his hand. He has a humility and approachability more commonly found in self-made men: When conversations turn to work, a passion enters his eyes as if everything he's got is riding on his latest deal. "I think Hoboken is just an amazing city," he says often. And as someone who chooses to live there with his wife and three kids, he seems well suited not only to his role as the W's builder, but perhaps the city's ambassador as well.
Barry is the third president of Applied, taking over in 2000 from his father, Joseph, who had taken the reins from his father, Walter, who founded the company in 1970 focusing on residential real estate along the Gold Coast. At the time, Hudson County was in a tailspin; decades of urban neglect had blighted the Hoboken and Jersey City landscapes. For Hoboken to rebound, New York City, the region's anchor, needed to first.
It did. And when it did, the Barrys were waiting.
Building and renovating, the Barrys quickly became major players. In a business that requires the strategy of a general and the luck of a lottery ticket, their fledgling concern flourished, blossoming into a powerhouse that has handled more than a billion dollars worth of property. While David has fond memories of his dad taking him, his brother, and sister to look at sites in Hoboken, he says that when he was younger he wanted no part of the family business. Instead, he went to law school at Georgetown.
Then came an epiphany. "Being a lawyer is pretty boring," he says with a laugh that sounds old for the young man he still appears. "I was really more interested in business."
Three years out of law school, Barry was working alongside his father, redeveloping his first project: a strip mall in Chester. Barry describes it as a "small" project: $1.5 million. He was hooked.
While David is president of Applied Development Company, which acquires properties, his brother, Michael, is president of Applied Property Management Company, which runs their commercial and residential assets.
Associates say the positions fit their styles well: David, the talker, is out making the deals, while Michael, the more contemplative one, runs the numbers and the day-to-day operations.
"They're very loyal and committed to their word," says Joe Panepinto Sr., a Jersey City developer who has dealt with the Barry brothers. "We sometimes do things just on an oral agreement."
That kind of track record will be key to getting the W completed on schedule In addition to its rococo rooms and apartments, the W also is expected to contain a bar and restaurant, as well as another bar in the lobby with a sweeping view of Manhattan, a gym, and a tony Bliss Spa, owned by the W's parent company, Starwood. A ballroom and more than 11,000 square feet of conference space are also on the boards.
It stands to be an amazing building. But it's one that almost didn't happen.
"We were not sure about the destination, to be candid with you," says Ted Darnall, president of the real estate-group for Starwood. Then one day last year, Darnall and other Starwood execs stood in the Hoboken train station at rush hour and watched a flood of well-heeled commuters arrive from Manhattan by rail and ferry. Darnall and company knew who they were looking at: potential customers for their hotel, its restaurant and bars, and its conference facilities.
"We were impressed," he says simply. Such a magical moment could happen only in Hollywood. Or in Hoboken, if the man behind the curtain is David Barry, the fellow who maneuvered the Starwood guys onto the platform in the first place. Friends say such a strategic-move, mixed with the appropriate splash of showmanship, describes his personality perfectly. For his part, Barry simply chalks it up to the art of the deal.
"Being a developer in a lot of ways to me is the essence of business," he says. "There are a lot of businesses out there that are operation-intensive. But real estate development, it's very deal-driven. Development is one of the last bastions of total entrepreneurship." He would know.
