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.
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