Page 18 - RE-NJ

16 APRIL 2023
The arrival of PTC Therapeutics will mark another chapter for the sprawling office campus known as Warren Corporate
Center, where the fast-growing biopharmaceutical firm will occupy 360,000 square feet for not only its headquarters, but a large laboratory facility.
For the team of Rubenstein Partners LP and Vision Real Estate Partners, the lease is further validation of
a property they acquired in 2016, banking on its location and the high- quality infrastructure passed down by the likes of Lucent Technologies and Citigroup.
“It’s really built to an extremely high standard,” said
PTC will occupy two of the campus’ five buildings, using roughly two- thirds of its footprint for lab space. And it’s perhaps the highest-profile example to date of a life sciences user that is converting an office building, in a state that has a dearth of high-quality, move-in-ready lab and research facilities, despite strong demand for the last several years.
That trend is poised to
continue, experts say, assuming pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms can find office buildings
that are viable candidates to be repurposed.
“It’s being done more and more, from what
we can see in
the current
environment,”
said Greg
DeMarco,
president of
Rock Brook, a
Monroe-based
engineering
firm. The practice has seen a 40 to 50 percent uptick in recent years in office-to-lab conversions, which require heavy duty mechanical, electrical and plumbing upgrades, but is still a faster and more cost- effective option than ground-
PTC Therapeutics will occupy 360,000 square feet at 400 and 500 Warren Corporate Center Drive in Warren after a build-out that will in- clude offices, collaboration and conferencing spaces and research laboratories.
GOING RETRO
Experts: Office conversions offer potential for supply-starved lab users, despite challenges
By Joshua Burd
Sam Morreale
Sam Morreale, founding and managing partner of Vision Real Estate Partners. “I think we saw that as the joint venture and
Greg DeMarco
we knew that we could amenitize this property and make it more interesting for multi-tenancy of any kind — and then have effectively the right real estate there for us to capitalize it and be able to deliver whatever a specific tenant wanted.”
Courtesy: Rubenstein Partners LP/Vision Real Estate Partners