Jones Lang LaSalle
$1B Allied Junction Project Makes Major Move Forward
Thursday, April 13, 2006 By Eric Peterson
(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)
SECAUCUS, NJ-Allied Junction Corp. has found a developer for its massive mixed-use project slated to rise atop and around the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station here, but isn’t identifying that developer just yet. "The deal hasn’t formally closed yet, and the developer doesn’t want its identity disclosed until that happens," a spokesman for Allied Junction tells GlobeSt.com. The spokesman did not know when the deal might close.
By any yardstick, however, the project is massive. Under the agreement the developer, identified by the spokesman only as "a national office property developer," will build the project according to a general site plan approved in the early 1990s by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, a state agency. While the final site plan is subject to amendment by agreement between the NJMC and the developer, the approved plan calls for four class A office towers of between 20 and 40 stories, totaling 3.5 million sf. Also part of the plan is a 600-room hotel and conference center, as well as a 112,000-sf retail concourse and a six-level, 4,400-car parking garage. Allied Junction and NJMC officials put the total cost of the project in the $1-billion range.
"This is the final piece of a dynamic puzzle more than 25 years in the making," says Marc Joseph, president/CEO of Allied Junction Corp., who is also a trustee for the George W. Newman Irrevocable Trust, owner of the property. Newman, who founded Allied Outdoor Advertising and subsequently bought the 28-acre site surrounding the Northeast Corridor rail line and adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike in 1982, died last year.
"Commercial development of this site will jump-start the North Jersey economy and provide residents here and throughout the state with our very own Rockefeller Center," Joseph says. The Lautenberg rail station itself, named for the once and future New Jersey senator and commonly referred to as Secaucus Junction, was completed in 2003. An interconnecting hub for several rail lines, it also sparked the creation of a new interchange on the New Jersey Turnpike, Exit 15X, which will serve the Allied Junction project as well.
"The office complex couldn’t be built until the highway interchange was complete," Joseph explains. "The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission stipulated that we had to wait. We used this time to identify a developer. The project fits perfectly with the NJMC’s desire for transit-driven development around the station."
Copyright © 2006 Real Estate Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
$1B Allied Junction Project Makes Major Move Forward
Thursday, April 13, 2006 By Eric Peterson
(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)
SECAUCUS, NJ-Allied Junction Corp. has found a developer for its massive mixed-use project slated to rise atop and around the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station here, but isn’t identifying that developer just yet. "The deal hasn’t formally closed yet, and the developer doesn’t want its identity disclosed until that happens," a spokesman for Allied Junction tells GlobeSt.com. The spokesman did not know when the deal might close.
By any yardstick, however, the project is massive. Under the agreement the developer, identified by the spokesman only as "a national office property developer," will build the project according to a general site plan approved in the early 1990s by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, a state agency. While the final site plan is subject to amendment by agreement between the NJMC and the developer, the approved plan calls for four class A office towers of between 20 and 40 stories, totaling 3.5 million sf. Also part of the plan is a 600-room hotel and conference center, as well as a 112,000-sf retail concourse and a six-level, 4,400-car parking garage. Allied Junction and NJMC officials put the total cost of the project in the $1-billion range.
"This is the final piece of a dynamic puzzle more than 25 years in the making," says Marc Joseph, president/CEO of Allied Junction Corp., who is also a trustee for the George W. Newman Irrevocable Trust, owner of the property. Newman, who founded Allied Outdoor Advertising and subsequently bought the 28-acre site surrounding the Northeast Corridor rail line and adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike in 1982, died last year.
"Commercial development of this site will jump-start the North Jersey economy and provide residents here and throughout the state with our very own Rockefeller Center," Joseph says. The Lautenberg rail station itself, named for the once and future New Jersey senator and commonly referred to as Secaucus Junction, was completed in 2003. An interconnecting hub for several rail lines, it also sparked the creation of a new interchange on the New Jersey Turnpike, Exit 15X, which will serve the Allied Junction project as well.
"The office complex couldn’t be built until the highway interchange was complete," Joseph explains. "The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission stipulated that we had to wait. We used this time to identify a developer. The project fits perfectly with the NJMC’s desire for transit-driven development around the station."
Copyright © 2006 Real Estate Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
posted by Jones Lang LaSalle NJ News Blog at 9:49 AM
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