Page 18 - RE-NJ

16 SEPTEMBER 2022
Courtesy: SJP Properties
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Insiders: New Jersey office market still ripe for large, blue-chip deals in age of hybrid work
Deloitte LLP has moved into its highly anticipated, gleaming
new office space in downtown Morristown, where it occupies 110,000 square feet under a lease that predates the pandemic.
For SJP Properties, which developed the building known as M Station East, the finished product has been “a huge asset” as it markets a second ground-up structure that is slated for the property, having toured Deloitte’s space with several prospective tenants.
“The fact that the east building is
now up and occupied has been a total game-changer,” said Alex Erdos, SJP’s
senior vice president of leasing and marketing. The developer has seen a significant uptick at the Morris Street project in recent months, drawing the interest of
several full-
building, high-
caliber users, he
said, “so we’re
pleased with the
activity level and
confident that
we’re going to
Alex Erdos get somebody
who is the right fit there. And it will
be somebody that’s accretive to the entire project and a good neighbor to Deloitte.”
Those tenants are out there, at
least according to Erdos and other
key players in New Jersey’s office market. Despite the push for hybrid
or all-remote work schedules — and lingering questions about how and when to lure employees back to an in- person setting — experts say the large, high-profile office deal is alive and well in the pandemic’s aftermath.
That’s evident by several outsized leases in New Jersey this year, starting in late spring and continuing through the summer, and others that are likely still to come, as blue-chip employers make major investments in their physical footprint, often involving relocation and new construction.
“It does feel to me that the bigger tenants seem to be putting a stake in
By Joshua Burd
Tim Greiner
the ground,” said Tim Greiner,
an executive managing director with JLL and the firm’s lead
office broker in New Jersey. “How they’re
designing their space is all over the map, but they seem to be willing to commit to space and make the capital commitment.”
According to Greiner, those employers hope that investing in a vibrant,
Deloitte LLP has moved into its highly anticipated new office space at M Station East in Morristown, where it occupies 110,000 square feet under a lease with SJP Properties and Scotto Properties. Office market experts say more large, high-profile office deals are likely to follow, despite the push for hybrid schedules and lingering questions about the return to work.