Page 18 - RE-NJ

16 MAY 2022
NEW TERRAIN
Developer’s plan would bring 272,000 sq. ft. warehouse to untapped Passaic County borough
Afamily-owned firm is hoping to bring modern warehouse space to a lesser-known swath of Passaic County, starting with a 272,000-square-foot facility just off Interstate 287.
The developer, D4 Properties LLC, could break ground as soon as this
fall after recently securing site plan approval from Wanaque, the host community, for the project at 30 Union Ave. in the borough’s Haskell section. In the process, it would create a distinctive setting for an industrial building within the state’s Highlands Region, a stretch of more than
800,000 acres of mountainous terrain that is largely protected from new development.
D4 Managing Member Nick DePaolera said the firm was marketing the project as a build-to-suit and has generated feedback that, so far, has
validated the location.
By Joshua Burd
major traffic and congestion in the
parents formed D4 Properties in 2017 in connection with a three-story, mixed-use project in neighboring Bloomingdale, which redeveloped the site of a rundown two-family house into eight apartments and ground-floor commercial space. The street-level section is home to the family’s four businesses, including KMC and Kaye Mechanical, which offer commercial HVAC, fire sprinkler, plumbing and process piping services, along with the development firm.
Two of their children, Matt and
Gary DePaolera Jr., joined the
family business as mechanics and field supervisors, while Nick joined Transwestern in 2014 as a project manager and site supervisor, before moving to NAI Hanson two years later. Their sister, Jilliana DePaolera Aboyoun, joined D4 upon its founding, in a part-time role focused on interior
design and aesthetics.
It was in his role as
a broker that Nick DePaolera was canvassing in late 2019, when he came across
the parcel at Union and Greenwood avenues. He noted that the industrial market was already booming at that time, but developers and tenants were still less likely to consider tertiary markets than they are now. Nonetheless, he found a prospective buyer for the property and went under contract, only to have the deal scuttled by the COVID-19 crisis.
DePaolera and his family began to discuss the deal internally, he said, believing it could be some time before the
For one thing, it’s exceedingly rare
to find a large industrial space or development tract in the Highlands. That has piqued the interest of would-be tenants in a state whose warehouse market is already vastly undersupplied. What’s more, the project known as The Depo would
be seconds from Exit 55 of I-287 and minutes from Route 23, the most direct artery to consumers in northwestern New Jersey — and midway between Boston and Washington D.C.
“We’ve had a few groups that are looking to distribute to those major cities in addition to New York City,” said DePaolera, who is also a Parsippany-based broker with NAI James E. Hanson. “And the benefit of this (location) is you’re able to access and deliver to three major cities without being caught in that
Meadowlands.”
Nick DePaolera
His family
is intimately familiar with the area. DePaolera’s father, Gary DePaolera Sr., founded what
is now KMC Mechanical Inc.
A proposal by D4 Properties LLC calls for building a 272,000-square-foot warehouse at 30 Union Ave. in the Haskell section of Wanaque, known as The Depo, capitalizing on a location just off Interstate 287 and minutes from Route 23.
in 1980, while he and wife Pamela Bronander created Kaye Mechanical Contractors LLC in 2007. The latter spent more than two decades working with her family’s business, Scandia Packaging Machinery Co. in Clifton, before joining her husband full-time in 2000, along with 25 years as a director at Wayne-based Valley National Bancorp starting in 1995.
The younger DePaolera, who grew up in nearby Kinnelon, said his
Courtesy: D4 Properties