Barclays Buys Revamped Office Complex in North Jersey
June 04 2017 - 12:21PM
Dow Jones News
By Keiko Morris
A joint venture that revamped a bland New Jersey office campus
into a modern complex with an amenity building, a bike-share
service and walking trails has sold the property to Barclays
PLC.
The venture of Rubenstein Partners L.P. and Vision Real Estate
Partners closed the $69 million sale to banking giant Barclays, a
tenant at The Crossings at Jefferson Park campus, at the end of
May. Rubenstein and Vision bought the 500,000 square-foot property
at 115 South Jefferson Rd. in Whippany for $25 million in 2012,
said Stephen Card, a principal at Rubenstein.
A Barclays spokesman said in an email the company intends to
redevelop the site in the coming years "to create a world-class
campus for our technology, operations and functional teams in the
U.S."
The joint venture of Rubenstein and Vision invested more than
$10 million in improvements, including the creation of an 11,000
square-foot amenity building at the campus, where three top-tier
office buildings are located. The amenity building houses a fitness
center, cafe and conference center.
"When we started building the interior of the amenity center, we
leased 145,000 square feet," Mr. Card said. "Once we committed to
the amenity center, the leasing activity skyrocketed."
Rubenstein, a real-estate investment management company, has
used a strategy of buying suburban office properties, making them
over and then selling. The company has taken the idea of creating
stand-alone amenity buildings to several of its other properties,
including office complexes in Warren, N.J., Indianapolis and
Atlanta.
At the Whippany campus, the joint venture also tore down an
industrial building on the campus to create a great lawn and plush
landscaping.
The team installed a bike-sharing program and added a walking
trail to connect to a local recreational trail known as Patriots'
Path.
Although the New Jersey office market continues to struggle with
vacancy rates above 20% and many companies are looking for urban
settings to recruit workers, Mr. Card said there is still demand in
the suburbs of New Jersey.
"You generate demand by giving high-level, high-quality
products," Mr. Card said.
Write to Keiko Morris at Keiko.Morris@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 04, 2017 12:06 ET (16:06 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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