KBS Sells New Jersey Office Park for $311M

Park Avenue at Morris County. Image courtesy of KBS

Twelve years after acquiring a six-building office campus in Florham Park, N.J., and completing a multimillion-dollar renovation plan, KBS has sold the asset for $311 million to an undisclosed buyer.

The sale comes just a day after KBS sold a 101,161-square-foot office property in Irvine, Calif., for $25.4 million to Dayani Partners LLC.

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Located in a high-performing New Jersey submarket, about 30 miles west of Manhattan, Park Avenue at Morris County totals 1.1 million square feet of Class A office space and is currently 89 percent occupied by a mix of tenants in the consulting, legal, financial and services industries. The six separate buildings were constructed between 1989 and 1999 and underwent cosmetic renovations in 2015 and 2016.

KBS Senior Vice President and Asset Manager Shannon Hill said in prepared remarks that even though the company purchased the office campus during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the firm maintained the property’s reputation through “strategic upgrades.”

Amenities and services upgrades

As part of its improvement plan, KBS overhauled the amenity offerings at the office park, adding a slew of options including a fitness facility with indoor and outdoor spaces and personal training, basketball and volleyball courts, a soccer field, electric car-charging stations and a dual shuttle service for tenants to the Madison Train Station and other local destinations. In addition to the amenities, KBS launched several services for tenants, including shoe-shining, car-washing, dry-cleaning, walking and jogging trails, as well as covered parking.

Upgrades to the physical components of the properties included modernized lobbies, new roofs and HVAC units, updated elevators, a new conference center, and an on-site concierge and security services. KBS also started a series of green initiatives at its properties, securing LEED and WiredScore certifications for the office park.

Jeffrey Dunne and Jeremy Neuer of CBRE represented KBS in the deal, while also securing the buyer.

According to a recent CBRE report on the New Jersey office market, positive net absorption increased 212,000 square feet from the second quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2019, led by the FIRE sector—financial services, insurance and real estate—and tech, professional and business services companies.