That guy had some big r/confidentlyincorrect energy going on

Did I say all of those places are all run by corporations, I said they tend to be run by corporations. Pound for pound, the vast majority of the landlords in those parts of town are not mom and pop. You do have holdouts, but they are the minority.

In Hoboken, the vast majority of the small mom and pop places cashed out a long time ago. In Manhattan the definition of a small landlord is usually just an LLC that owns like 3 buildings. Im excited there are some still there, especially in along Newark Ave, but thats usually the exception now a days.

At the end of the day, landlords in redeveloping or up and coming neighborhoods want to make the neighborhood as attractive as possible to get the tenants they want. Downtown is increasingly being advertised to university students, recent graduates, and young professionals looking for easy access to Manhattan/JC/Hoboken. That crowd tends to want a more active nightlife close by to compliment the nightlife of the rest of the region. So landlords will change with the crowd and attract those places.

Another counter point, small landlords (the more mom and pop places) tend to shy away from attracting rowdy crowds because they have limited incomes to deal with the damage that a rowdy crowd causes/to deal with their tenants complaining about noise violations/etc. Corporate landlords have the funds to deal with it so they generally have no issue leasing out to businesses that cater to night life etc.