Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Jones Lang LaSalle

UPDATE: Lanidex Plaza’s Sale Price Was $41M
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: April 17, 2006 02:17pm

PARSIPPANY, NJ-The venerable six-building, 280,000-sf Lanidex Executive Center quietly sold early this year, acquired by the Montville, NJ-based Ivy Realty from the portfolio of Transwestern. General word of the sale emerged last month when the New Jersey office of Jones Lang LaSalle announced that it had secured the leasing exclusive for the office campus from new owner Ivy.

Now, further details of the transaction have emerged, including the sale price. The six-building property traded for $41 million, according to Gary Gabriel, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group, East Rutherford, NJ. That sale price factors out to approximately $146 per sf. Also, according to Gabriel, “Ivy Realty won among a pool of more than 15 competitive bidders to purchase the class A campus.”

The deal also marks the second time the C&W group has arranged the sale of the property--which has been renamed Ivy Corporate Park--in the past four years. In the early 2002 transaction, Gabriel’s group engineered Transwestern’s acquisition of the property from Lincoln Property Co. for $27.6 million, or just under $99 per sf. Lincoln itself had bought the property in 1998, subsequently launching a lease-up and stabilization program for it.

“It has a stellar occupancy rate despite an elevated overall vacancy rate in the Parsippany market,” Gabriel says. “That’s a testament to its location and tenant appeal.” Located at the intersection of Interstates 80 and 287, the property’s current occupancy is in the mid-90s range. Among its major tenants are the headquarters of Kings Supermarkets, itself just sold by Marks & Spencer to a group of private investment firms; Great American Insurance; and Lanier Worldwide, among others.

Ivy’s acquisition boosted the firm’s holdings in the Parsippany market to almost 500,000 sf; It also owns the nearby 10, 20 and 30 Lanidex Plaza Rd. buildings. The now-renamed Ivy Corporate Park is arrayed from 200 to 700 Lanidex Plaza Rd. Its six buildings were built in stages between 1976 and 1980, and the four oldest buildings were renovated successively between 1990 and 1993.