Haytham Haidar, CEO of PARQ Builders, is spearheading the redevelopment of Parsippany’s Lanidex Plaza into a walkable, sustainable residential community that caters to hybrid workers, whose first phase is slated to include 600 luxury apartments and townhomes with retail, amenities and acres of open space. — Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ
By Joshua Burd
Haytham Haidar offered a familiar refrain, as he noted that the pandemic only accelerated many of the trends that were already taking hold in commercial real estate.
A case in point is the growing demand for buildings that promote health, wellness and sustainability.
“I think we’re going to continue to learn a great deal of lessons, as we plan and design these assets, from COVID-19 about how human behavior changed, how work practices changed,” said Haidar, CEO of PARQ Builders. “And some of those changes can stay with us for good.”
It’s a dominant focus for Haidar’s team and its partners as they carry out one of New Jersey’s most closely watched redevelopment projects, at Parsippany’s Lanidex Plaza, where they are transforming a large piece of a suburban office park that once housed 450,000 square feet across nine buildings. Construction is well underway on 275 luxury apartments at the site now known as PARQ, kicking off a first phase that will ultimately include 600 homes with convenience retail, lifestyle amenities and acres of open space.
In the process, PARQ Builders is advancing a plan that is heavily focused on sustainability, Haidar said, working alongside Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners. That includes a vision of having some 30 percent of the site dedicated to recreation or green space, green design practices and electric vehicle charging stations, with the potential for rooftop solar panels. Its plan also calls for a shuttle service for residents to nearby train stations — and perhaps even to Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, he said, as additional phases come online.
Ultimately, the developer plans to seek certification with the U.S. Green Building Council, not for a single building, but for the entire 45-acre community.
“We set out on this process literally after we broke ground in June … because we are of the view, as a long-term holder, there is a very significant upside first and foremost for the community — not only for us, but our surroundings,” Haidar said. What’s more, focusing on sustainability is also “good practice” and reflective of how residents’ tastes have changed.
The mid-June groundbreaking ceremony drew a crowd of public officials, professionals and other well-wishers, launching a project that could be a blueprint for the state’s many other aging, suburban office parks. And it came four years after Milelli Real Estate Partners assumed full control of the 45-acre campus off Parsippany Road, whose location at the junction of interstates 287 and 80 was once a key draw for tenants, before then partnering with Tema Development to craft the PARQ concept.
With users now seeking newer office space, often in urban locations, the developers have already razed four of the nine office buildings at Lanidex. The first 275-unit apartment building is slated to be complete around spring 2024. Additionally, Ryan Homes has started work on the project’s 75 clustered townhomes, which are also part of the 23-acre section of the campus that is currently approved for redevelopment.
The site’s infrastructure is also taking shape, including the widened roadway that will become the landscaped, retail-lined thoroughfare known as PARQ Boulevard. Its design will encourage pedestrian traffic between buildings and throughout the redesigned campus, serving as the centerpiece of the project and a hallmark of its focus on open space and walkability.
“You have to be flexible as things change, but to a large degree we’ve stayed true to our vision,” Haidar said. “If there’s anything I take personally, I take a great deal of pride in this boulevard more than anything else. This boulevard is going to be absolutely out of this world.”
Green design elements at PARQ will include windows with Low-E or low emissivity coating, allowing light and heat to enter the buildings while deflecting harmful UV rays, along with programmable thermostats and Energy Star appliances and lighting fixtures. The use of such materials should help reduce operating expenses over the lifetime of the property, Haidar said, noting that developers are often too focused on upfront capital expenditures at the expense of longer-term costs.
“As we design and engineer, we focus a great deal on that selection because, from experience and based on data, it helps us immensely improve the economics during the op-ex phase of that asset,” he said.
It’s all part of a formula that Haidar hopes will allow the full campus to become certified on the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design scale, widely known as LEED. While the USGBC has been rating new and renovated buildings for more than two decades, city and community designation began only in 2016. According to the organization, nearly 130 localities, districts or campuseshave secured LEED certification in the United States, including only Hoboken and Woodbridge in New Jersey.
While the PARQ team is still in the early stages of pursuing the designation, Haidar said “that’s our objective and I strongly believe that we’re going to get it done.”
Construction on the full first phase is slated to last through late 2025. But residents of the first 275-unit building will be on site well before then and likely eager to use the recreation spaces and amenities that will be completed along the way, from coffee shops and restaurants to the one-mile walking trail that will wrap around the sprawling campus.
“I think we have been really fortunate to be blessed with the size of the park we have here,” Haidar said. “But, irrespectively, we believe and we practice that you have to do what’s right.”
PARQ’s team on the project also includes Murphy Schiller & Wilkes LLP as finance counsel and Garofalo O’Neill Ruggierio LLC as land use counsel, plus Design 446, Greystar Real Estate Partners, Sue Adler of Keller Williams Premier Properties, Langan, Melillo + Bauer Associates and Mary Cook Associates. Last year, the developer secured $91 million in construction financing, provided by two leading global insurance companies, to help jumpstart the $119 million first phase, with JLL senior managing directors Michael Klein and Jon Mikula and Vice President Michael Lachs sourcing the debt package.
Revival of Parsippany site underway as office buildings come down, with rentals soon to come
