Amazon Inks 360 KSF Lease for New Jersey Site

Aerial view of the Highland Cross site. Image courtesy of Lincoln Equities Group

Amazon is once again expanding its industrial footprint in the New York City area. The e-commerce juggernaut will lease a 360,000-square-foot warehouse currently under construction in Rutherford, N.J., less than 10 miles from Manhattan.

Owner Lincoln Equities Group is building the Class A industrial project, which Amazon will use as a last-mile distribution center, the real estate firm said in a press release. LEG secured $115 million in construction financing for the project, dubbed Highland Cross. The facility is slated to be completed in early 2022.

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Highland Cross is rising in Northern New Jersey’s Meadowlands industrial market. Designed by Ford & Associates, the project will have 36-foot-plus clear heights, cross-docked loading, 70-plus dock high doors and 80-plus trailer parks.

The lease announcement comes several months after UPS inked a deal to lease LEG’s forthcoming Lincoln Logistics Bayonne project, an 880,000-square-foot industrial property in Bayonne, N.J. The $500 million distribution center is being built on a 153-acre site that was formerly the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne.

LEG has been active in the Rutherford market for decades. In 1998, the company was tapped by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and the Borough of Rutherford to redevelop the 30-acre site, which sits at the junction of the New Jersey Turnpike and N.J. Routes 3 and 17. Designated a brownfield site, LEG has since completed a cleanup and a wetlands mitigation program.

Amazon’s NYC moves

As e-commerce demand has continued to soar in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has been busy taking space across the five boroughs. Last fall, Amazon signed a long-term lease for 312,100-square-feet at Thor Equities’ upcoming industrial project in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. The company will use the property, located adjacent to a 346,000-square-foot IKEA store, as a last-mile distribution facility. Earlier this year, Thor obtained a $155 million recap for the project, along with a $76 million construction loan.

Amazon also previously inked a 1.1 million-square-foot lease with LBA Logistics and RXR Realty at the partnership’s distribution center in Queens. That project received $316 million in construction financing last December and is expected to be completed in December 2022.