Cooke Mills at 19 Market St. in Paterson — Courtesy: Colliers International
By Joshua Burd
A private investor has acquired a 14-unit apartment property in Paterson for $1.9 million, brokers with Colliers International announced Tuesday.
In a news release, the firm said it arranged the sale of Cooke Mills at 19 Market St. to a regional buyer. Colliers marketed the Great Falls Historic District property on behalf of the seller, noting that it drew more than three dozen tours and 18 qualified bidders, closing within 75 days of being presented to the market.
The sale price equates to $135,750 per unit and is among the city’s highest price-per-unit trades to date, Colliers said.
Jacklene Chesler, Patrick Norris, Matthew Brown and Angelo Vitale, who are based in the firm’s Parsippany office, headed the assignment. They marketed the building in conjunction with Ten-X, an online transaction platform for commercial real estate, also leveraging Colliers’ proprietary investor database.
“Strong demand, low vacancies and favorable demographics are contributing to the ongoing popularity of New Jersey multifamily within the commercial investment community,” Chesler said. “The level of interest in Cooke Mills and the property’s ultimate per-unit sale price attest to the continuation of that trend.
“This transaction also speaks to growing interest and progress in the City of Paterson, which is making great strides toward revitalization. This includes significant adaptive reuse of obsolete industrial properties into thriving residential and retail product.”
Cooke Mills is a three-story building with an elevator and surface and below-grade parking, the news release said. It is part of a larger, 20-unit project constructed in 2007 and has been at or near 100 percent occupancy since the seller acquired it in 2012.
Colliers added that the brick and decorative brownstone-faced building incorporates the façade and a lower-level portion of a historic mill building from the late 1800s. Apartments feature 14-foot ceilings and high-end finishes.
The firm also touted Cooke Mills’ proximity to Great Falls Historical Park-Garret Mountain and Interstate 80, Route 19 and other highways and mass transit options.
“These attributes all solidify Cooke Mills’ competitive advantage in the marketplace,” Chesler said. “The property’s new owner can also leverage significant upside potential in the form of increasing rents on units that are currently set at below-market rates.”