Cassidy Turley Named Leasing Agent for 1.1 MSF New Jersey Office Portfolio

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Center 78 in Warren, N.J.

There’s nothing like teamwork, and Cassidy Turley and Normandy Real Estate Partners plan to prove the adage true with a new partnership. Normandy has tapped Cassidy Turley to serve as the leasing agent for a 1.1 million-square-foot office portfolio in New Jersey, and in turn, Cassidy Turley has welcomed two of the real estate developer’s team members to the firm in the new joint endeavor.

It’s not your typical real estate services outsourcing relationship; it’s a strategic alliance. While Cassidy Turley is spearheading leasing activity, Normandy is maintaining a “hands on” connection, of sorts, by delivering industry experts Raymond Trevisan and William O’Keefe — principal and senior vice president, respectively — to Cassidy Turley. At the commercial real estate services firm, Trevisan is heading up the New Jersey operations as managing principal and O’Keefe has taken on the role of senior vice president.

“We have benefitted from a very productive and longstanding relationship with Cassidy Turley and this alliance will further strengthen our leasing initiatives in the New Jersey market,” said Finn Wentworth, a Normandy founder and managing principal.

The Normandy portfolio includes Center 78, a 371,000-square-foot office building in Warren. Normandy acquired the asset in December 2011 and is presently engaged in a $12 million capital-expenditure program at the property. Another Warren property, the 106,900 square-foot building at 25 Independence Blvd., is also part of the group.

Cassidy Turley and its new Normandy transplants will have their hands full in the Garden State. The Northern New Jersey office market is slowly crawling toward recovery, hindered in no small part by historically high unemployment rates, according to a report by Cassidy Turley. And the firm predicts only “modest occupancy growth” on the horizon in Central New Jersey. The markets closed 2011 with respective vacancy rates of 14.9 and 16.5 percent.

Challenging environment or no, Cassidy Turley has the faith of many a real estate holder. In February, J.P. Morgan Asset Management tapped the firm to handle leasing and management of two Texas properties totaling 2.5 million square feet. And last December, Equity Office Properties turned to Cassidy Turley to manage and/or lease a group of office assets encompassing approximately 3 million square feet in three markets in the Midwest and the South.