Page 20 - RE-NJ

18 MAY 2025
Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ
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A DIFFERENT LOOK
Inside Wiss’ growth beyond a
traditional accounting fi rm — with an offi ce to match
By Joshua Burd
The wall of stacked abacuses
behind the reception desk
may be something of a tell, but
there’s little else about Wiss’ offi ce in
Florham Park that says you’ve arrived
at an accounting fi rm.
That’s exactly what Alex Narcise
wants to hear, given the company’s
focus on creating a vibrant,
contemporary environment when it
moved to the space more than fi ve
years ago — all with the goals of
attracting talent and conveying that
its business is as much about helping
clients leverage automation and
technology as it is about audits and
tax returns.
“We’re really trying to become a tech
company, basically, because it’s just
at the center of everything now,” said
Narcise, partner-in-charge of Wiss’
real estate and construction services
group. “We hire probably 30 or 40
people out of school every year and
they’re 22 years old … they grew up
on technology, so they expect when
they come into the workforce that
there’s technology available.
“We don’t want that look and feel of
an accounting fi rm. I want to stand
out and be different.”
Wiss has done exactly that with its
move to and subsequent expansion in
Florham Park, at 100 Campus Drive,
which has largely coincided with its
own growth in recent years. The fi rm,
which serves many of New Jersey’s
best-known developers, has more
than doubled its physical footprint
from its former longtime home in
Livingston, now occupying 70,000
square feet across two fl oors, while
its headcount now totals about 325,
up from 200 when it moved in early
2020.
Much of that growth stems from Wiss’
commercial real estate practice as
well as several key service lines that
Narcise says have become additive to
many of those same clients, including
wealth management, estate planning
and others outside traditional
accounting. There’s also the fi rm’s
increasingly important, fast-growing
advisory business, whose offerings
include outsourced bookkeeping,
recruiting and consulting on how to
streamline and automate a company’s
internal accounting functions.
“We ask clients, ‘Is there a project
that takes you eight hours that we
can make into 30 minutes?’” Narcise
said. “And they love that all day long
because that’s the value.
“The accounting and the tax … all
come with it. That’s our annuitized
business, but it’s (about) ‘How else
can we help make things easier for
you?’ — and then just training them.”
Founded in 1969, Wiss is a key player
in New Jersey’s commercial real
estate sector, serving a long list of
family-owned fi rms in an industry
that accounts for roughly 20 percent