Hartz Mountain Industries joined its project team on June 3 to mark the completion of Fairways at Cranford, a new 250-unit luxury apartment property at 750 Walnut Ave. in Cranford.
By Joshua Burd
Hartz Mountain Industries has brought new life to another aging office property in New Jersey, delivering 250 apartments to a sprawling site near Cranford’s Hyatt Hills Golf Course.
Located at 750 Walnut Ave., the two-building Fairways at Cranford occupies a large piece of the parcel that long housed some 410,000 square feet of commercial space. That transformation is nearly a decade in the making, starting around 2017 when the anchor tenant’s lease expired and left Hartz with the prospect of having a large, obsolete building that it had owned since 1988.
“It worked well back then, but once the lease expired, there was absolutely no potential to relet that office space,” said Gus Milano, the firm’s president and chief operating officer, adding: “It was a typical suburban office building that had no residual value, so we made the very challenging, difficult decision to tear the property down and start over.”
The Secaucus-based developer joined its project team last week to mark the completion of Fairways at Cranford, which has a mix of one- and two-bedroom rentals and amenities such as landscaped courtyards with grilling stations, a resident lounge with dining tables and bar seating and a theater room, the firm said. Residents will also have access to clubrooms with outdoor access, a fully equipped fitness center and coworking spaces with private meeting rooms, while each building includes a lobby and ample parking with electric vehicle charging stations.
Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners designed the community, which was built by March Associates Construction and is roughly 40 percent leased after recently hitting the market with Greystar as its leasing team. Executives from those firms were among those on hand for the June 3 ribbon-cutting ceremony, where Hartz marked the end of a project that was decidedly difficult but “had the benefit of very, very talented professionals,” Milano said.
“It’s probably one of most successful jobs that we’ve experienced during our 40 years in business,” said Lou March Jr., president of Wayne-based March Associates. “And to have a successful job like this does take the whole team.”
Milano also detailed the history of a site that Hartz acquired in 1988, giving way to a 25-year lease with what was then Summit Bank and a major addition to the building to support the new tenant. The lender and its successor companies, including Fleet Bank and Bank of America, would anchor the complex with a footprint of about 250,000 square feet, he said.
“I never thought I’d have to worry about it again — it was a 25-year credit lease — but if you live long enough, the lease expires,” Milano joked. “The site became a distressed real estate asset.”
Tearing it down became the only option, he added, however daunting it may have been to secure new zoning for the property.
“It was very difficult, but we managed to ultimately get there, and now we have 250 beautiful apartments,” Milano said. “And we’re very, very proud of this project.”
