Cushman & Wakefield Brokers $66.6M in Financing for One Newark Center in New Jersey
POSTED ON DECEMBER 4, 2017 BY AMY WORKS IN LOANS, NEW JERSEY, NORTHEAST, OFFICE
One-Newark-Center-Newark-NJ
Located at 1085 Raymond Blvd. in Newark, N.J., One Newark Center features 423,028 square feet of office space.

NEWARK, N.J. — Cushman & Wakefield has arranged $66.6 million in acquisition financing secured by One Newark Center, located at 1085 Raymond Blvd. in Newark, for Beijing Ideal Group. Morgan Stanley Bank provided the 10-year, fixed-rate financing. The property in the transaction represented floors 6 through 22 of One Newark Center, a 22-story, 423,028-square-foot office building, along with the adjacent 10-story parking garage. John Alascio, Sridhar Vankayala and Noble Carpenter of Cushman & Wakefield represented the borrower in the transaction.

K. Hovnanian Enterprises, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, announced last week it was accepting an unsolicited offer for the company’s world headquarters, 110 West Front St. While company representatives did not reveal the purchaser in the Sept. 7 press release, OceanFirst Bank, headquartered on Hooper Avenue in Toms River, has announced it is under contract to buy the site and will use the West Front Street location for additional offices for administrative uses.

“We’ve had significant expansion over the past two years,” said Jill Apito Hewitt, OceanFirst’s director of investor relations and corporate communications. With OceanFirst’s recent acquisitions and with another currently pending, the banking operation needed the additional location, she said.

K. Hovnanian plans on relocating to office space off Garden State Parkway Exit 120, in the Matawan/Old Bridge area. And while K. Hovnanian “remains committed to its roots in New Jersey” and will keep its official headquarters in Monmouth County, the company’s press statement acknowledged New Jersey represents about only five percent of its national homebuilding business. For the last 15 years Ara Hovnanian, the company’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, has maintained his offices in New York City, where he and his family live. “Mr. Hovnanian spends a significant amount of his time travelling across the country to the various divisions across 14 states,” the press release indicated.

A warehouse space for rent becomes a lifeline for your business if the nature of your business involves selling, storing and shipping physical products. You may rent an industrial space to store the inventory or purchase it, whichever suits you the most. However, renting comes affordable and quicker when you want to start your business activities right away. Warehouses fall under the category of industrial spaces which you can utilize for the storage of goods as and when needed. Take a sneak peek below to make your warehouse rental, your best initiative ever.

1. Pick A Strategic Location:

The foremost step while heading with a warehouse space for rent is to pick a strategic location that supports your business activities. Analyze how the location of the warehouse is impacting your business. The location should be such that it cuts down the logistics cost to optimal. For instance, picking a place located close to the airport could be your best bet for warehouse rental if the company indulges in international shipment.

2. Keep Room For Future Expansion:

No matter if you are currently operating out of a small warehouse, but it should have a room for expansion if the needs arise in future. Over time, your business may need to expand and demand more space, so you should better look out for a facility that can accommodate to the evolving needs.

3. Prefer A Safe Storage Environment:

The storage space must be mold free and well-maintained. You don’t want to end up spoiling your products with fungi and molds. The storage environment must be pest-free, especially if you are going to store perishable products. Furthermore, the warehouse must have a provision of air-conditioning for the sake of protecting your business goods. The warehouse design should restrict debris entering into the facility.

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Vacancy in the New Jersey industrial real estate market at mid-year 2015 dipped below 8.0 percent for the first time in more than six years, and occupancy gains finished in the green for the tenth consecutive quarter, according to East Rutherford-based Cushman & Wakefield. The commercial real estate services firm’s latest research findings also show continued brisk demand, a modest rise in asking rental rates and a healthy construction pipeline.

Overall vacancy dropped to 7.6 percent during the second quarter, down 0.4 percentage points from the end of March. Within the warehouse/distribution sector, the rate is nominally lower at 7.4 percent. “The warehouse market has strengthened considerably, with user demand offsetting significant product coming online in the form of new speculative development and large space dispositions,” noted Cushman & Wakefield’s Jason Price, research director – tri state suburbs. “We expect it will tighten even further during the second half of the year.”

New Jersey posted more than 5.9 million square feet of leasing activity during the second quarter, slightly ahead of the pace set during the first three months of 2015. With 11.8 million square feet of year-to-date leasing, the state is just behind the pace at mid-year 2014 (12.5 million square feet).

Fourteen new commitments in excess of 100,000 square feet were executed during the second quarter; half of these transactions were 200,000 square feet or greater. The largest involved Amazon’s 1.1 million-square-foot lease at 8003 Industrial Avenue in Carteret, Romark Logistics’ 359,950-square-foot lease at 23 Mack Drive in Edison and FedEx’s build-to-suit commitment for 315,000 at 1075 Secaucus Road in Secaucus. Renewal activity was strong as well, with 10 renewals in excess of 100,000 square feet. Among them, National Packaging Services signed a 300,000-square-foot renewal and expansion agreement at 1000 New County Road in Secaucus.

“This activity resulted in more than 3.3 million square feet of industrial space being absorbed year-to-date,” Price said. “Tenants absorbed 946,195 square feet in the second quarter alone. The Lower I-287, Upper I-287 and Meadowlands submarkets each recorded over 300,000 square feet of occupancy gains during the past three months.”

On the pricing front, New Jersey’s $6.38 per-square-foot average direct asking rental rate for industrial space is 3.1 percent higher than it was at mid-year 2014. In the warehouse/distribution sector, the average direct asking rent of $5.73 per square foot represents a hike of more than 13.0 percent over the past three years. The Lower 287, Port Region and Exit 8A submarkets saw their average direct rental rates edge higher in recent months.

Improving market fundamentals also continue to support new development. “After reaching a 14-year high in 2014, industrial construction remains steady in New Jersey,” Price said. “Just under 1.2 million square feet of product has been delivered year-to-date, including speculative buildings at 965 Cranbury South River Road (550,050 square feet) and 11 Corn Road (308,276 square feet) in South Brunswick.”

With another 3.3 million square feet currently under construction – heavily concentrated in the Lower 287 and Exit 8A submarkets – industrial space deliveries in 2015 are expected to outpace four of the previous five years in terms of volume. “Much of the product being developed is on a speculative basis,” Price said. “However, with net absorption easily outpacing construction the market is in no risk of becoming overbuilt in the near future.”

Price noted that Cushman & Wakefield anticipates the market will remain on track through the balance of 2015. “Healthy demand, including strong activity involving 3PLs and e-commerce retailers, should drive up rents in key submarkets through the end of the year,” he noted. “And despite a number of speculative space deliveries on the horizon, this demand will also result in space availabilities continuing to tighten – especially along the New Jersey Turnpike.”

Commercial market going strong, especially in Mercer County, real estate agents say

Just before the economy plunged into a recession and began a sluggish recovery, Hilton Realty bought an undeveloped lot in the Carnegie Center office complex on Route 1 in West Windsor.

Four years later, as the local market for office space began to show signs of strength, Hilton broke ground on an 88,000-square-foot, high-end office building at the 300 Carnegie Center tract. No tenants were signed up in advance, but Hilton was confident they would materialize.

“We started to see increased velocity, increased activity in the market,” Hilton assistant leasing director Matthew Malatich said. “We decided to start building the building and everything started to fall in place.”

Last year, well before the building was finished, Hilton announced its first tenant, Heartland Payment Systems, which now occupies more than 22,000 square feet in the building. VMS Fund Administration, Peapack Gladstone Bank, Advisors Asset Management, Moofwd and JP Morgan Chase Bank have all followed Heartland, filling up about 55 percent of the building. Malatich said he expects the building will be full by the end of this year.

Such performance has real estate developers and owners confident that robust times are ahead for the area’s commercial space and warehouse market, which also benefits from a well-educated work force and regional metropolitan areas. The vacancy rate in Mercer County for high-end, or Class A, office spaces dropped 1.1 percentage points last year to sit at an even 10 percent, based on a market report by Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate company.

Hilton’s new building is commanding a premium rent, about $36 per square foot, a few dollars above the average rental rate for higher end commercial office space in the area.

The three-story office building features a modern granite and glass interior with sleek metal trim and a wall of windows that let light flood into the lobby. Hilton also included a fitness room with lockers and showers, and built the structure according to high environmental standards, Malatich said.

Despite the success of the building and the current strength of the market, local development of large commercial office buildings has been slow to pick up coming out of the recession. There has been little new construction of this type in the area other than the 300 Carnegie Center building, said Aubrey Haines, CEO at Mercer Oak Realty. And that slowness on the part of developers has contributed to a growing shortage of space.

“When you’re looking for smaller spaces you have a wide range of choices,” Haines said. “If you’re at 50,000 or 100,000 square feet, options are limited.”

While the recession pushed down demand for a few years, it also suppressed development.

“That creates more pent-up demand so when the market comes back they need a lot of space in a hurry,” Haines said. “There’s almost no new supply expected to come online.”

Demand is outpacing supply in the market, Haines said, but until rental rates for high quality office space increase it will be difficult to convince large banks to finance the development of new buildings. The suburban nature of the local market leads financiers to be hesitant to lend despite growing demand, he said.

As a result 300 Carnegie Center is the only newly constructed Class A office space to open in the area since 2009, he said. From concept to completion, it will take an average developer about 2½ to three years to produce a new building, Haines said, and with none currently under development it is unlikely that new space will be put on the market in the next two years.

Even large commercial tenants already in the area are going to be affected as many large leases expire in the next three years, Haines said. These tenants need to start thinking about where they will be in a few years and the effect this market will have on rental rates, he said.

“They have nowhere to go but up,” Haines said.

After remaining stable around the $30-31 per square foot mark over the past decade, Haines projects that the shortage of new space will push rates up toward $40 per square foot by 2020.

The market for industrial space in the area faces a similar dynamic of rising demand and limited supply, said Marc Petrella, a senior analyst with Cushman & Wakefield.

As the midpoint between New York and Philadelphia, and on a larger scale between Boston and Washington, D.C., the local industrial real estate market is in a promising position, he said.

The market, consisting largely of warehouses and manufacturing sites, is concentrated along the Turnpike in two submarkets surrounding exits 7A and 8A, Petrella said, and the area has seen a lot of growth and is primed for further expansion.

The 8A submarket, consisting of south Middlesex towns including Plainsboro and Monroe, has one new industrial development under way; a 450,000-square-foot building in South Brunswick. While this is a significant addition, it enters a submarket that has 68-million-square feet of warehouse space which already has 92 percent occupancy.

The 7A submarket is highly concentrated in Robbinsville, and while it is smaller than 8A it has seen high demand recently, as it has exceeded 1 million square feet in new industrial leases in each of the last three years.

“You keep hearing about all the companies bringing their operations back toward population centers,” Petrella said. New Jersey, with its dense population and surrounding metropolitan areas, is one of those centers, he said.

The market for industrial space in the area was weak through 2009 and 2010, but has recovered since 2011, he said. Vacancy in the warehouse market is about 8 percent currently, he said. The 1.2 million-square-foot Amazon warehouse under construction in Robbinsville is a promising sign for future industrial development in the area, Petrella said.

“The continued growth in ecommerce for traditional retailers is good for New Jersey just based on where New Jersey sits,” Petrella said.

SUNDAY, MAY 26, 2013 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY MAY 26, 2013, 11:10 AM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

While the office market continues to languish in North Jersey, industrial real estate is rebounding.

The Panasonic building at 100 Meadowland Parkway in Secaucus, which will be vacant later this year.
Hartz Mountain Industries Inc., which owns and manages one of the largest privately held commercial real estate portfolios in the country, leased more than 1.5 million square feet in the first quarter, and roughly 1.3 million of that was for its warehouse assets, according to the company. That activity included six leases for new warehouse tenants, who took about 400,000 square feet of space.

“The market is very healthy from a landlord’s perspective,” said Gus Milano, managing director for Secaucus-based Hartz.

How the market has improved
Area Vacancy rate 1Q 2013 Vacancy rate 1Q 2012 Rent 1Q 2013 (1) Rent 1Q 2012
Bergen 10.3% 11.2% $5.92 $5.68
Passaic 8.4% 8.4% $5.27 $5.14
North N.J. (2) 9.3% 10.3% $5.92 $5.72
(1) Asking rate per square foot a year for warehouse/distribution space
(2) Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Morris and Essex counties

Source: Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey Inc.

The overall industrial vacancy rate in North Jersey — Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Morris and Hudson counties — was 9.3 percent in the first quarter, down from 10.1 percent at the end of last year and 10.3 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc. of New Jersey.

Some of the existing warehouse/distribution space is being taken by data centers, as the region has become one of the national hubs for data-center construction. And while the activity is generally considered positive, data-center operations generate fewer jobs than a warehouse or distribution center would.

“Anytime you’re in single-digit vacancy numbers, that’s a pretty healthy number,” said Marc Petrella, a Cushman senior director. “And in the first quarter of 2013, there were 5 million square feet of new deals done in those northern five counties. Activity is good. Supply is constrained, and so we see the market continuing on a positive trajectory and improving here in the near term.”

Bergen County saw its industrial vacancy rate decline to 10.3 percent in the first quarter from 11.2 percent in the same period a year ago. It was unchanged in Passaic County, at 8.4 percent.

In northern New Jersey, the industrial market is particularly active in not only the Meadowlands, which Petrella called “ground zero” for that real estate sector, but also Teterboro, Carlstadt, Port Newark/Elizabeth and, no joke, New Jersey Turnpike exits.

“I just had to do a report for somebody who wanted the vacancy rates per exit on the turnpike,” said Doug Bansbach, senior vice president and principal of real estate broker Cassidy Turley in Somerset. “The turnpike drives the market because of the truck traffic.”

There are a number of reasons why the North Jersey industrial market is getting a boost, creating an uptick that’s mainly being seen in warehouse and distribution space. Following the Great Recession, there’s pent-up demand for the space. Rising consumer confidence means companies have to supply and ship more goods.

Rising e-commerce sales are fueling the need for distribution outlets in the New York metro area, as well. Retail e-commerce spending surpassed $50 billion in the first quarter, up 13 percent from the year-ago period, according to ComScore.

While there’s growing demand, there’s actually a limited amount of state-of-the-art, Class A industrial space in most of Bergen and Passaic counties, brokers said. No one dared build it during the economic downturn. And some of the existing warehouse/distribution space is being snapped up for a whole new real estate use: data centers. And in general, data-center operations generate fewer jobs than a warehouse or distribution center would.

There are several industrial projects under way, reflecting the increasing strength of the sector. Teterboro Landing, the retail mall planned by developer Catellus for the former Honeywell site in Teterboro, will include a 160,000-square-foot, build-to-suit distribution center, said David Knee, managing director for Jones Lang LaSalle, the broker on the building.

“Multiple developers have been starting to spec buildings, which really was non-existent for several years, and the buildings are slowly getting leased,” said Ken Lundberg, senior vice president at NAI James E. Hanson in Hackensack.

Hartz plans to renovate the 673,000-square-foot warehouse complex at 100 Meadowland Parkway in Secaucus that Panasonic Corp. is vacating in October, Milano said. Panasonic is moving to Newark.

“The building is 40 years old and we have plans to make it a new, modern distribution building,” he said. “We’re going to raise the roof to 32-foot clear [from 24 feet]. There are very few 32-foot clear buildings that are half a million square feet or more. It’s a rarity. So it will be a pretty spectacular product to have in this market near New York City.”

That facility won’t be ready until the second quarter next year, but Milano said, “I already have tenants that I’m in negotiations with.”

Hartz also plans to demolish a 200,000-square-foot office building at 1 Panasonic Way in Secaucus.

“That parcel will be redeveloped as either an expansion of the warehouse or other possible uses,” Milano said.

Consumer spending and e-commerce sales have been on an upswing, and that fuels the need for industrial space.

“Warehouses fill up based on consumer consumption,” Lundberg said. “If, specifically, retail sales go up or companies are convinced they are going up, they will purchase more product, hence the need for more space.”

Added Milano, “There’s retail demand, and many of our third-party logistics companies support the retail industry.”

E-commerce is now a big part of that consumer equation. Amazon, with its same-day-delivery pledge to customers, has taken a huge stake in industrial real estate in Central Jersey, planning a 1-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Robbinsville. To keep its same-day-delivery goal, Amazon needed to have a distribution center close to New York City, but needed more industrial space than Bergen County, a mature market, had to offer, brokers said.

Ultimately, there will be a trickle-down effect for North Jersey, real estate officials said. Distribution centers need to be near large populations of end-users, Lundberg said.

“What’s going to help northern and central New Jersey, like the ports, is all the feeders that go to Amazon,” said Nicholas Nitti, CBRE first vice president in Saddle Brook.

Amazon isn’t the only company doing e-commerce, or promising quick deliveries to customers, that is leasing space in New Jersey. Online grocery seller Peapod said in December it is taking 345,000 square feet at the 880,000-square-foot Pulaski Distribution Center in Jersey City, Nitti said. His company represented Peapod in the deal, while Jones Lang LaSalle represented landlord Prologis. And most brick-and-mortar stores are now doing e-commerce, selling merchandise from websites, as well.

“We do have tenants that are in e-commerce businesses, there’s no question about that,” Milano said. “That’s part of the [warehouse/distribution] space they need for what they do. And some of the retailers have e-commerce within distribution space that they have under lease with us. So that’s certainly a segment of the market today.”

Rents for industrial space have also been trending up. In the first quarter the average asking rent for warehouse/distribution space in North Jersey was $5.92 a square foot a year, up from $5.72 in the year-ago quarter, according to Cushman. In Bergen, it was $5.92, compared with $5.68 in the first quarter last year. And in Passaic County, the rate was $5.27, up from $5.14 the prior year.

Rents on some of the new state-of-the art warehouse space are pricing in the mid-$7 range, Bansbach said.

“There is a slight uptick in asking-and-taking rents with fewer concessions that landlords have to make in terms of free rent and how much money they have to give a tenant to retrofit the space,” Knee said.

North Jersey has the largest concentration of data centers in the nation, and Bergen and Passaic’s stock of warehouse space is being eaten into by those centers, diminishing the supply as the demand is surging.

There’s been a burst of such activity in the past year. Digital Realty Trust Inc. acquired a former 271,000-square-foot Roche building at 701 Union Blvd., Totowa, for $16.8 million to transform into a data center. Earlier this year, Hartz sold a 283,215-square-foot building at 2 Emerson Lane, Secaucus, for $18.4 million to CoreSite Realty Corp. to convert into a data center. And late last year, Internap Network Services signed a long-term lease for 100,000 square feet in Secaucus for a data center. Those three deals alone took roughly 654,000 square feet out North Jersey’s pool of warehouse space out of 285.7 million square feet in overall industrial space.

All in all, the industrial real estate market has become extremely complex and challenging for brokers, Nitti said.

“In addition to understanding all of the industrial inventory and pipeline projects, you now need to understand inbound-and-outbound freight; space planning; logistics; drayage costs [the price between picking up a container at the ports and delivering it to another point]; flood and water tables; how will gas prices and tolls affect the distribution model; and how do traffic patterns affect it,” Nitti said. “Companies are scrutinizing many different pieces of the supply chain to get the most effective and efficient model so they can outperform their competitors and grow in this economy.

How to Plan Space Requirements in a Warehouse

Warehouse space is rented or leased by the square foot. To lesson the overall operating cost of the warehouse, it is vital that all space be used wisely and efficiently. With careful planning and foresight, it should be possible to maximize the usage of all floor space and lower your operating cost per unit.
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Instructions

1

Determine what type of material-handling equipment you will need. This will include forklifts, pallet jacks and operator-up machines. The narrower you can keep the travel isles the more room you will have available for product storage. An operator-up wire guided machine can operate in an isle as narrow as 6 feet. A typical forklift will require more than twice that amount of room to do the same job. Isle width is a critical element in your design and use of the available warehouse space.
2

Plan out your racking. Begin at one end of the warehouse and space the pallet racking equally, allowing for proper Isle width between each row of racking. Plan for the racking to be as high as your ceilings will allow. Pallet racking can extend to heights of 40 feet of more, allowing you to use the maximum amount of cubic space available within the warehouse. Allow narrow spaces of 6 to 8 inches between pallet racks that will be set back to back. This will help prevent product damage from pallets being set in from the opposite aisle.

3

Determine the optimum storage size of your product. Determine if it will be stocked in single unit cartons or on full pallets. Take careful measurements and lay out your shelf pattern to match these requirements. Most warehouses have a combination of single carton and pallets. It is important to create the proper number of each. If the wrong number are created, you will either waste labor breaking down pallets to be stored as single cartons or waste space by storing single cartons in pallet-size locations. Set your shelf beams to the proper height on the pallet racking to create the proper number of each size storage area.
4

Mark off an area to be used as your receiving dock and a second area to be used as your shipping area. If you have the space, it is always best to have these functions done separately to avoid confusion and shipping errors. Depending on your product, you may also need an area for value add (special customer requirements that must be added before shipment) as well as a holding area for future shipments awaiting the proper ship date.

Instructions

Learn How to Lease Warehouse Space
1

Identify your needs. Walk through your operation step-by-step, listing the warehouse requirements at each juncture. You may need electricity and a certain number of outlets. You may need a water source. Ceiling space may be a concern. Your warehouse may also need to maintain a certain temperature.
2

Consider whether this will be a working warehouse. Some warehouse space is used only for storage. If employees will be working in your warehouse at length, you will need restroom facilities, proper ventilation, parking spaces and a break room.

3

Figure out how much space you will need. Very small, storage-only warehouses may have a set monthly rent like a residence. Most office space rents by the square foot. The basic formula is calculated by multiplying the number of square feet to be leased by the price per square foot. To determine the monthly rent divide this number by 12.
4

Research locations. When looking at the building and its location, consider how often you receive shipments. Companies that receive constant deliveries may need to be near a freeway or even a seaport.
5

Think about the kind of access you need to the building. Doorways should be large enough for deliveries. Certain businesses may require docks.
6

Check out the landlord and the property management. Ask other tenants about the quality of the services provided. Make sure the buildings are up to safety code requirements.
7

Recognize your responsibilities as a tenant. Do not assume that the landlord will do certain things. Don’t agree to anything that is not spelled out in the lease.
8

Understand your lease. Commercial lease terminology can become complicated quickly. For instance, a triple net lease makes you responsible not just for the rent but for all expenses associated with your warehouse space as well. Have your attorney read over the lease before signing it.
9

Know your rights as a tenant. Most warehouse leases remain enforceable even if ownership of the building changes. Make sure the lease addresses your inability to use your warehouse space due to a problem caused by the landlord.
10

Insure your equipment. The landlord’s insurance will not cover losses to your inventory. You should also purchase liability insurance in case one of your employees or a visitor is injured. Both you and the landlord can be held liable for events taking place inside the w