Hampshire Cos. Sells NJ Industrial Building for $51M

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

700 Union Blvd.

HFF has brokered the sale of a $51 million industrial building in Totowa, N.J. The company had marketed 700 Union Blvd., a 382,596-square-foot property on behalf of the seller, The Hampshire Cos. of Morristown, N.J.

The buyer was AEW, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

The property consists of two adjoining parts. An older portion, completed in 1963 and renovated since, comprises a 210,750-square-foot warehouse with an attached 43,442-square-foot, two-story office annex. A new addition of 137,323 square feet, with 36-foot clear ceilings, was completed recently. The 26-acre site now totals 55 loading docks, about 52 trailer spaces and about 262 parking spaces and also features a new ESFR system.

700 Union Blvd. is just off I-80 and less than 13 miles from the New Jersey Turnpike, which provides easy access to the rest of northern New Jersey and to New York City.

The HFF team included Executive Managing Director Joe Thornton Jr., Senior Managing Directors Jon Mikula and Jose Cruz, and Directors Marc Duval and Jordan Avanzato.

“We continue to see investor interest in high quality and well-located industrial assets throughout the state,” Cruz said in a prepared statement.

The property was marketed along with a $147 million, six-building industrial portfolio totaling 1.2 million square feet in northern New Jersey, the sale of which was closed by HFF in mid-2017.

The closing on 700 Union Blvd., Cruz added, “completes the acquisition of the portfolio.”

Hampshire had purchased the property in mid-2016 from P.F. Laboratories Inc., a subsidiary of Purdue Pharma LP, for about $20 million.

Stronger than strong 

The New Jersey industrial market is among the nation’s strongest, with 10.6 million square feet of leasing in just the third quarter, which is up 8.0 percent from the five-year average, according to a new report from Colliers International.

Big-box leases in particular showed remarkable activity: Eight leases for more than 300,000 square feet each were signed in the third quarter. Average availability fell by 100 basis points year-over-year, to 5.0 percent.

With all that, it’s no surprise that the average asking rent rose to $7.93 per square foot, up 11.2 percent from last year’s average and an all-time record, again per Colliers.

Image courtesy of HFF