Developers still bullish on Central Jersey warehouse market
PISCATAWAY – Developers are still bullish on the warehouse market in Central Jersey.
Levin Management Corporation (LMC), of North Plainfield, has announced its new 30,000-square-foot warehouse at 101 Circle Drive in the Rutgers Industrial Center will be completed in early August. The project, once completed, will bring the total number of buildings at the center to six.
And Levin is seeking approval to build an approximately 54,213-square-foot expansion to an existing 100,094-square-foot warehouse at 140 Circle Drive North.
"In the commercial real estate world, when you're building on spec, you're basically starting your construction of a new development before you have a tenant," said Robert Carson, president of Levin Management Corporation. "You're just speculating that the tenant will come along and lease the building before you complete it."
Levin is manager of the Rutgers Industrial Center, a five-building, 493,000-square-foot industrial/warehouse complex in the I-287 industrial corridor.
"For many years, we've been managing five other buildings along Circle Drive North and this a new ground-up development for us," Carson said.
Carson said the project reflects surging real estate demand from e-commerce users and third-party logistics providers.
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"The demand right now is very high for any industrial warehouse space and throughout New Jersey, particularly in the Central New Jersey market," Carson said. "What I'm hearing from the brokerage community is that there's just a lot of pent-up demand for our area, mostly driven by people who are wanting to be close to where goods are received."
Central Jersey's location has many advantages, he explained.
"New Jersey is right on the seaports and then the warehouse demand sort of emanates from there, where goods are being brought in from all over the world and then being sent out to warehouses all over the area," Carson said. "To that end, we are seeing some inquiries for kind of 'Last Mile' type of businesses who bring in product on a very short-term basis and then redistribute it out to the local trade area."
Carson said the property at 101 Circle Drive North fits those needs.
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"We have a relatively small piece of land and we maximize what we can build there based on the township's zoning requirements," he said. "But, I think what we're hearing from the brokerage community is that size is definitely in demand for smaller warehouse users."
101 Circle Drive North will feature 35-foot minimum clear heights, six dock doors, 38 parking stalls, up to 1,650 square feet of office space and an ESFR sprinkler system.
"Ideally, we really just want to rent it to one tenant who would have the one building and also the surrounding parking and truck circulation areas," Carson said.
The buildings in the development are 100% leased.
Brad Wadlow is a staff writer for MyCentralJersey.com. Email: bwadlow@gannettnj.com
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Developers still bullish on Central Jersey warehouse market
