A rendering of an interior at a former Johnson & Johnson campus in Morris Plains, where Vision Real Estate Partners is marketing a modern, 240,000-square-foot office building and plans to raze and redevelop a series of older buildings. — Courtesy: Vision Real Estate Partners
As I’m sure many of you have, I’ve heard my fair share of baseball metaphors during interviews and conferences about commercial real estate.
Not that I actually mind. But it was worth pointing that out to Sam Morreale and Ross Chomik, the well-known leaders of Vision Real Estate Partners, who preferred a far less common metaphor when discussing their strategy.
I’m paraphrasing, but it went something like this:
Buy the steel at the right price. Design and build a car that meets what the market wants. The consumer buys the car, somebody else sees that car and they want that same car. Repeat the process.
Much like a good baseball reference, this one made perfect sense when it came to understanding how Vision approaches its business. The Mountain Lakes-based developer has a habit of finding buildings in New Jersey with the location and the infrastructure that made them appealing to corporate tenants of a bygone era, but have outlived their useful life.
That’s the raw material, as Morreale and Chomik like to say, and that is where Vision’s formula of investing in and repositioning such a property for today’s corporate user comes into play.
As you’ll read in this month’s cover story, Vision has mastered that formula over the past several years. The firm has thrived with what it describes as “an assembly line mentality” for transforming old corporate campuses, with the right mix of creativity and capital and a full-service, in-house team that has landed some of the state’s most coveted tenants. It’s now building on that track record with other high-profile projects in Morris County and a growing list of value-add investments across northern and central New Jersey.
Our new issue highlights a few other key names in New Jersey commercial real estate, including The Garibaldi Group. The 100-year-old, Chatham-based real estate services firm is marking its centennial with a wholesale rebrand and a commitment to expand its platform. Most notably, Garibaldi is building on the success and momentum it gained as the leasing agent at Bell Works in Holmdel, hoping to continue its push into the tech sector and other growth areas.
In another feature, we provide a look at Stockton University’s new campus in Atlantic City, part of a transformative, $220 million redevelopment by Atlantic City Development Corp. And in our Personalities section, you’ll find an interview with the leaders of The Blau & Berg Co., which has notched some impressive growth in recent years while managing to retain a close-knit, family-style atmosphere.
We bring you those stories and more in our first issue of the fall, as we gear up for what promises to be a busy fourth quarter. And before you know it, we’ll be looking ahead to 2019. I’m sure most of you already are.
As always, we hope you continue to find everything you need in these pages and online at www.RE-NJ.com and in The Briefing, our daily e-blast. Thank you for reading and for your continued feedback. Enjoy the issue!
Joshua Burd
Editor
josh@re-nj.com