Jones Lang LaSalle

Toshiba Unit, Software Firm Ink Leases
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: December 30, 2005 08:21am

PARSIPPANY, NJ-Toshiba America Business Solutions has leased 13,116 sf of office space at 959 Route 46 East, also known as Parsippany Place. TABS, an independent operating company of Toshiba Corp., manages product planning, marketing and other functions related to distribution of the parent’s office products in the Americas.

The tenant was represented by Scott K. Perkins, managing director of NAI James E. Hanson, Hackensack, and by M. Christopher Turner, senior director of the Texas-based NAI Stoneleigh Huff Brous McDowell. Building owner Lincoln Property Co., which has its New Jersey offices in Edison, was represented in-house.

“We were able to work with our Texas NAI colleagues to arrange the lease for Toshiba in this centrally located building,” Perkins says. Built in 1985, Parsippany Place is a 130,000-sf, five-story office building. Other tenants include BestBuy Co., Hyperion and Medtronic USA Inc. Terms of the signing were not disclosed; however, available space in the building is currently listed on Lincoln Property Co.’s website with an asking price of $22 per sf.

And in Little Falls, Lawson Software Inc. has agreed to lease 15,067 sf of office space at Overlook at Great Notch, a class A office building. The company is using the space as a regional office.

The tenant was represented in the transaction by Matt McDonough, senior vice president in the Florham Park office of Trammell Crow Co., along with Peter Livaditis, a principal in the firm’s Chicago office. Jeffrey Heller, formerly with Cushman & Wakefield of NJ, represented the building’s owner Theta Holding Co. LP. Heller has since moved over to Trammell Crow in Florham Park with the title of executive vice president. The St. Paul-based Lawson, whose new regional office is a 425,000-sf building perched on a mountaintop here, provides business process software for a variety of service organizations.

Jones Lang LaSalle

ING Buys Metropolitan Center for $120M
By Sean Ryan
Last updated: December 28, 2005 02:35pm

Sean Ryan is associate editor of Real Estate New Jersey.
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ-New York City-based ING Clarion has purchased Metropolitan Center from CB Richard Ellis Investors for $119.5 million, or $282.51 per sf. The 423,000-sf, 15-story building is 92% leased.

Cushman and Wakefield’s Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group brokered the deal; the group’s office is in the building. Also known by its address at One Meadowlands Plaza, the site sits off both Exit 16W of the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 3. The Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel and Conference Center is nearby, as is all of the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Future developments next to the property include the $1.4-billion Xanadu retail center, the new football stadium for the Giants and Jets, and the Orchard Park residential development.
CBRE had invested more than $3.5 million in capital improvements to the property over the past three years since acquiring the building, then 87% leased, from a MetLife portfolio. Major tenants include the aforementioned C&W, P&O Nedlloyd, Hudson News and the newly signed Aegis Insurance, which took 93,000 sf.

“The Meadowlands is one of Northern New Jersey’s largest and best located office markets,” says Andrew Merin, executive vice president of the capital markets group. “Within it, Metropolitan Center is the largest and most prominent class A office building, and the property consistently achieves the highest rental rates in the submarket by virtue of its quality, location and amenity package.”

Jones Lang LaSalle

JLL Wins 1M-SF Leasing Assignment
By Sean Ryan
Last updated: December 28, 2005 10:10am

Sean Ryan is associate editor of Real Estate New Jersey.
SOMERSET, NJ-LaSalle Investment Management Inc has tapped Jones Lang LaSalle’s Parsippany branch to lease and manage two office complexes here: Atrium Corporate Park and Campus Drive Executive Park. The two have a combined 1.1 million sf of office space.
Executive vice president Thomas Reilly and senior vice president Susan Mason will oversee leasing efforts. Executive vice president Ian King will oversee the two complexes’ management. All three advised La Salle Investment when it bought the two complexes from Allegiance Realty Corp. earlier this year.

LaSalle is the third owner the properties have had in a year. JLL had the leasing assignment for Campus Drive Executive Park when Allegiance owned both it and Atrium. The larger Atrium assignment at the time was given to Cushman & Wakefield, who also had it when the Archon Group owned the two complexes at the beginning of the year.

“The properties are well-positioned to draw from the steady volume of space users looking for New Jersey office space,” JLL’s Reilly says. Atrium Corporate has four class A buildings at 300, 400, 500 and 700 Atrium Dr, totaling 852,400 sf. Campus Drive Executive Park has two class B buildings at 379 and 399 Campus Dr., totaling 208,000 sf.

Jones Lang LaSalle

C&W Picks Up Assignment for Landings’ Retail Space
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: December 28, 2005 08:19am

(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)
PERTH AMBOY, NJ-The Kushner Cos.’ Landings at HarborSide project is bringing approximately 150,000 sf of new retail space to the local market and the developer has hired Cushman & Wakefield to fill that space. The larger $600-million waterfront project also includes 2,100 residential units, as well as a marina, parks and recreation facilities and a future hotel site.
Michael Stone and Justin Stein, C&W’s New Jersey retail specialists, will head the assignment, which initially involves a 27,500-sf block of space in the Landings’ first phase. Additional phases will bring the total product to that 150,000-sf total, and the search is on for a combination of local, regional and national retailers, according to Ira Bloom, director of commercial leasing for the Florham Park-based Kushner.

“Their expertise with urban redevelopments such as this make them the right choice,” says Bloom, referring to Stone and Stein. The duo has been involved in properties all along the New Jersey waterfront, including some high-profile assignments in Jersey City and Hoboken. Westminster Communities, Kushner’s construction arm, is in the process of building phase one of the Landings, involving two residential complexes slated for occupancy next. A third building is expected to begin shortly.

Jones Lang LaSalle


USPS Takes 180,000 SF
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: December 27, 2005 08:07am

(To read more on the industrial market, click here.)
SWEDESBORO, NJ-Jackson Cross Partners, based in King of Prussia, PA, has racked up a half-dozen lease signings worth more than 325,000 sf in South Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the largest deal in terms of value, Powell Electronics, a provider of electronic connectors and switches, will occupy 60,000 sf at 200 Commodore Dr. within Commodore I-295 Business Center here.

“Powell is consolidating certain operations,” says Harry McKenna of Jackson Cross, who repped building owner the Dolan Group. Powell, which was repped by Colliers L&A, “will be taking an entire 60,000-sf building on 4.2 acres. The building includes 14,880 sf of office space.”
In the lease involving the most space, the US Postal Service leased 179,785 sf for seasonal operations at 1370 Imperial Way within Mid-Lantic Park in West Deptford. Jackson Cross spoke for the USPS, while the Flynn Co. represented to owner, who was not identified.

In other signings, Elite Flowers took 49,170 sf of refrigerated distribution space at 9 Campus Dr. in Burling Business Campus, Burlington Township. Based in South America with its US headquarters in Florida, the company will use the New Jersey space as a Northeast distribution center. The building is owned by the Dolan Group.

In the other signings, Floorz Inc. took 4,817 sf of flex space at 614 Heron Dr. in Bridgeport, and in a separate lease, 2,400 sf of retail space at the Shoppes at Pureland, also in Bridgeport. And in the one Pennsylvania lease, UTi United States, a logistics company, signed on for 30,000 sf at Ashland Center II in Folcroft.