Washington Bridge Plaza at 2151 Lemoine Ave. in Fort Lee — Courtesy: JLL
By Joshua Burd
The site of a busy shopping center in Fort Lee is on the market for sale, with the potential for redevelopment as a multifamily property at the foot of the George Washington Bridge.
According to JLL, which is marketing the asset, the 47,154-square-foot center at 2151 Lemoine Ave. is nearly fully leased to tenants including Walgreens, Dollar Tree, Jersey Mike’s, Kung Fu Tea and GNC, with a weighted average remaining lease term of five years. It also benefits from a location within the borough’s main commercial corridor, while it’s surrounded by more than 2,250 multifamily units within a half-mile radius.
Notably, JLL said, the property’s as-of-right zoning allows for a conditional use to reposition the site into a midrise multifamily development “within one of the state’s most coveted locations” — in a market where rents for Class A apartments currently sit at $4.57 per square foot.
“Washington Bridge Plaza presents investors with the generational opportunity to acquire a 98 (percent) leased neighborhood shopping center with national tenancy, mark-to-market upside and redevelopment potential in one of New Jersey’s most affluent submarkets,” the JLL team wrote in its offering materials. It added that Fort Lee has a population of more than 40,000 — or 13,416 people per square mile — and an average household income of $131,620.
Adjacent retailers include ACME Markets, Starbucks and Valley Bank, while the parcel is minutes from Fort Lee’s bustling downtown and its more than 30 restaurants, bars and cafes, JLL said. The 2.18-acre property also provides quick access to the George Washington Bridge, Interstate 95 and routes 46 and 4, among others.
Meantime, the surrounding submarket has seen only 49,455 square feet of new retail space delivered since 2013, JLL said, with no new projects in the pipeline. For the multifamily sector, Fort Lee has a vacancy rate of 2.9 percent, with only 317 units currently under construction.
JLL brokers J.B. Bruno, Jose Cruz, Kevin O’Hearn and Peter Kim are marketing the property, with the firm’s Max Custer available for financing advisory and Craig Parcells and Blake Shanaphy listed for leasing support.
