Kawa Capital Enters NJ With Office Acquisition

West Windsor Commons. Photo courtesy of JLL.

A fully leased office campus has changed hands in Princeton, New Jersey. John Hancock Financial (which operates as Manulife outside the U.S.) sold West Windsor Commons. According to public records, the buyer was Kawa Capital Management, a Florida-based asset management and investor company.

No financial details were disclosed. According to CommercialEdge, this is Kawa’s first office property in New Jersey.

JLL acts as leasing manager for the property. A JLL Capital Markets team, led by Senior Managing Directors Jose Cruz and Kevin O’Hearn, Senior Director Michael Oliver, Managing Director Stephen Simonelli, and Analyst Alexander Alfier, marketed the property on behalf of the seller and procured the buyer.

The same team facilitated the previous sale of the building, in 2012. According to CommercialEdge, John Hancock/Manulife paid $88.5 million for the property, buying it from UBS Realty Investors.

West Windsor Commons is situated at 7 and 9 Roszel Road, less than a mile south from the Brunswick Pike (State Route 1). It comprises two office buildings of five and three stories, totaling 302,000 square feet. The Class A property was built in 1999 and underwent a cosmetic renovation in 2011. Tenant amenities include a fitness center, a café, upper floor balconies, a courtyard and a parking ratio of 1.5 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

According to JLL, the property benefits from a long-term weighted average of lease agreements. Tenants include Merrill Lynch/Bank of America and Bristol Myers Squibb. West Windsor Commons is about 2 miles north of Princeton Junction and just south of Princeton University. According to JLL, the area continues to present a high amount of interest from investors.

In January, the Princeton office submarket recorded a vacancy of 22.8 percent, according to CommercialEdge, well above New Jersey’s average of 17.1 percent. New Jersey also recorded one of the lowest rates of office construction, with developments underway totaling 0.5 percent of total stock. The market’s average price reached $263 as of January, slightly below the national rate of $288.

Lack of space is what contributes to sluggish activity, with some developers looking to repurpose older stock. Less than 3 miles Northeast of West Windsor Commons, Nuveen Real Estate is working on renovating a 440,000-square-foot office property, named Princeton Point, with a focus on lifestyle amenities and green spaces.