Page 24 - RE-NJ

22 OCTOBER 2022
Courtesy: TCC/CBRE
Along-dormant and formerly contaminated site in Sayreville, once home to gunpowder and chemical plants, is finding new life under a development that will add more than a million square feet
of modern industrial space to the market in Central Jersey.
The three-building Arsenal Trade Center also promises to bring new jobs and ratables to the Raritan
Bay region. Experts say that, while players like Amazon are stepping back from warehouse and logistics expansion in the state, the market for such properties remains robust.
“Overall, the vacancy rate is still very healthy
Arsenal is a joint venture between Trammell Crow Co. and a fund managed by CBRE Investment Management. Located off South Minisink Avenue, the 74-acre site is about four miles east of the New Jersey Turnpike.
“Tenants recognize the central location that
this market
offers, providing
access to more
than 2 million
people within a
30-minute drive
and with it, some
of the country’s
most talented
Andrew Mele pools of labor,” Andrew Mele, managing director of TCC’s Northeast metro office, said in a press release. “The size, scale and high-quality design of Arsenal Trade Center are unique attributes in this market that we believe will be attractive to today’s modern logistics user.”
In an interview with Real Estate NJ, Mele said the project’s cost would be “north of $300 million.”
The developers hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site in mid- September, but bulldozers and backhoes had already begun carving paths and creating mounds of the sandy soil. The buildings will each come online at different times,
with the entire project slated for completion in late 2023.
Plans call for 170 rear loading docks spread among three buildings: one encompassing 284,341 square feet, another 341,833 square feet and the third 451,602 square feet. Additional parking is planned for tractor-trailers and other vehicles. Talks have already begun with potential tenants, the developers said.
The vacancy rate for the Exit 10 submarket is 1 percent and is even tighter for Class A space, with a rate of 0.7 percent, said Knee, who oversees JLL’s industrial practice in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
“The only challenge with that site
is a little bit on the access, it’s not a direct on and off,” he said. “But there are more challenging markets that do very well. It’s a good location and
the visibility is good. It’s just a little trickier location.”
Mele said there are just two stoplights after getting off the Turnpike from Route 9.
“Would I prefer that this project be sitting on the Turnpike interchange?” he said. “Yes, but those sites don’t exist in this scale or quality.”
The Arsenal project is the culmination of nearly two decades of attempts
to clean up and reuse the site,
which was the home of the Hercules Inc. plant for nearly 100 years. Gunpowder was manufactured at the site and then chemicals, including the pesticide DDT.
Beginning with Hercules, years of soil and groundwater remediation at the plant was undertaken under the direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ashland Inc. acquired Hercules in 2008, shuttering the plant in 2014 and selling the development site — which is just a portion of the Hercules tract — to Arsenal’s developers this summer. By that time, the joint venture had conducted more than three years of
David Knee
and there is still healthy demand,” said David Knee, an industrial broker and vice chairman with JLL. “E-commerce
has slowed down, but the New Jersey marketplace is very diversified in terms of tenants and markets.”
INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL
Massive ex-manufacturing site in Sayreville to be reborn as 1.1 million sq. ft. logistics hub
By Patricia Alex
Trammell Crow Co. and a fund managed by CBRE Investment Management have broken ground on a three-building, 1.08 million-square-foot industrial park known as Arsenal Trade Center, as depicted in this rendering, in a project that will redevelop part of a former chemical plant at 50 South Minisink Ave. in Sayreville.