Mack-Cali to Sell Suburban Office/Flex Assets for $488M

1 Executive Blvd.

Mack-Cali Realty Corp., a Jersey City, N.J.-based office and multifamily REIT, will soon be completing its strategic repositioning with the sale of a 56-building, 3.1 million-square-foot office/flex portfolio in suburban New York and Connecticut for $487.5 million.

The portfolio, which comprises 51 properties in Westchester County, N.Y., and five in Fairfield County, Conn., is being sold to RMC Acquisition Entity LLC, an affiliate of the Robert Martin Co. LLC, a longtime Westchester County real estate developer. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. A portion of the proceeds of the sale will be used to repay approximately $230 million of unsecured debt, the firm stated.

“The sale of our office/flex portfolio substantially completes our strategic repositioning. Mack-Cali’s evolution to a waterfront centric office and residential landlord is now complete,” Michael DeMarco, Mack-Cali CEO, said in a prepared statement. “Proceeds from the sale of this portfolio will be used in part to pay down debt and to purchase Soho Lofts, a 377-unit apartment community in Jersey City, which furthers our waterfront strategy.”

It will also mark the firm’s exit from the two suburban markets just north of New York City. Five of the properties are in Stamford, Conn.—410 West Ave., 500 West Ave., 550 West Ave., 650 West Ave. and 600 West Ave.

Most of the Westchester properties are in Central Westchester with 26 in Elmsford, N.Y., 13 in Hawthorne, N.Y., and one in Tarrytown, N.Y., at 240 White Plains Road. Eleven are located in the Southern Westchester city of Yonkers, N.Y., including 1 Executive Blvd. and 3 Executive Blvd. Elmsford assets include 125 Clearbrook Road, 101 Executive Blvd. and 1 Westchester Plaza. Among the Hawthorne properties are 12 on Skyline Drive.

Repositioning efforts

The company began repositioning its holdings in the second quarter of 2015 as it began to change its focus from a predominantly suburban office landlord to an owner, manager and developer of premier office and multifamily properties, mainly on the New Jersey waterfront. The firm’s signature complex is Harborside, a mixed-use development on the Jersey City waterfront with offices, retail, hotels, residences and restaurants.

When Mack-Cali released its fourth quarter and year-end 2018 earnings report several weeks ago, DeMarco noted the firm had achieved “the substantial completion of our non-core asset sales” in 2018.

“We have a substantial and dominant market share in both our office and multifamily portfolios on the waterfront and other premier markets and believe that our actions will result in substantial value creation for our stakeholders,” DeMarco stated in the earnings release.

In addition to the planned 56-asset sale, Mack-Cali sold another major Westchester property this year. In January, the firm sold the Elmsford Distribution Center, its 386,000-square-foot warehouse/distribution complex, to Realterm Logistics for approximately $70.3 million. The center has six buildings at 1-6 Warehouse Lane in Elmsford, ranging from 6,600 to 195,500 square feet. Mack-Cali had owned the campus, which can accommodate 100,000 square feet of additional industrial development, since 1997.

Mack-Cali has also been selling non-core assets in New Jersey over the past several years. In 2017, the firm sold a 1.2 million-square-foot portfolio of industrial assets in Moorestown and Burlington, N.J., near Philadelphia. Also in 2017, Mack-Cali sold the 508,000-square-foot Totowa Commerce Center in Passaic County, N.J., and an approximately 823,700-square-foot office portfolio in Cranford and Clark, N.J.

Image courtesy of Mack-Cali Realty Corp.