Two Meadowlands Office Buildings Sold

By Linda Moss, Staff Writer
The Bergen Record – December 5, 2013

Two office buildings in the Meadowlands have been sold, with one in Secaucus fetching $47 million for Hartz Mountain Industries Inc. and the other marking a New York company’s entry into the market.

Hartz, in yet another divestiture of an office property, has sold 100 Plaza Drive in its Harmon Meadow complex to Harbor Group International, a Norfolk, Va.-based real estate investment firm.

In the second sale, Rugby Realty Co. of New Rochelle has purchased City View Corporate Center, a 135,418-square-foot building at 160 Chubb Ave., Lyndhurst, from TA Associates Realty, a Boston real estate fund. The price wasn’t disclosed.

Rugby Realty has a 169,000-square-foot warehouse with best freezer storage at 1000 Huyler St., Teterboro, but this acquisition marks its first venture into the office sector in New Jersey, said Maurice Ades, principal and managing director of the firm.

CBRE Inc. represented Hartz in the sale of 265,000-square-foot 100 Plaza Drive, as well as in the June sale of 200 Plaza Drive, a 250,000-square-foot office building in Harmon Meadow, for $56 million to Gaia Real Estate. Because of the soft office market, Hartz is repositioning its real estate portfolio by reducing its office holdings, going from 10 million square feet to 4 million square feet in the past few years, according to Hartz Managing Director Gus Milano.

The 100 Plaza Drive property, developed by Secaucus-based Hartz in 1981, is 90 percent leased and anchored by tenants such as NBA Entertainment and Scholastic. Hartz spent $13 million renovated the building between 2008 and 2011.

Rugby Realty has extensive real estate holdings in cities such as New York and Pittsburgh, and is looking at several additional office buildings in North Jersey, Ades said. The office market in the Meadowlands, with its proximity to Manhattan, is poised for a turnaround, he said.

Rugby Realty’s acquisition in Lyndhurst is nearly 80 percent occupied, with 26,000 square feet vacant. Cushman & Wakefield Inc., which represented TA Associates in the sale, has been named leasing agent for the property. The building underwent an extensive renovation in 2006.

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