85 Main St. in Spotswood — Courtesy: NAI Fennelly
By Joshua Burd
An affiliate of the Rockefeller Group has acquired the site of a vacant 58-acre manufacturing complex in Spotswood — about a 10-minute drive from the New Jersey Turnpike — in a transaction arranged by brokers with NAI Fennelly.
Located at 85 Main St., the property changed hands for $40.25 million, thanks in part to its redevelopment potential, its location less than a mile from Route 18 and its proximity to Exit 9 of the Turnpike. The brokerage team noted that the former owner operated at the site from 1941 to 2020 before opting to market it for sale, which ultimately led to 40 showings, 20 offers and 10 financial statements in the first 30 days.
NAI Fennelly’s Jerry Fennelly and Patrick Dintrone represented the seller in the deal with what they described as a private institutional buyer. The purchaser, listed as RG Spotswood LLC, shares a Manhattan address with Rockefeller Group, whose New Jersey team has built some of the state’s largest industrial projects in recent years.
“Selling manufacturing assets can be difficult for large international companies,” Fennelly said in a prepared statement. “Far too often, a lack of local market knowledge and experience can make the sales process lengthy, expensive and frustrating. However, working with NAI Fennelly allows international and national companies the opportunity to tap into our unparalleled experience in the central New Jersey market and enjoy the full end-to-end sales experience focused on efficiently securing the highest market value for any commercial asset.”
A Rockefeller Group spokesman confirmed that the company purchased the site but said its team is still discussing redevelopment plans with the municipality, a small borough between East Brunswick and Old Bridge.
The seller is SWM International, a maker of performance materials such as films, adhesive tapes, foams and nets, which announced in early December that it had closed its sale of the property. The site housed part of its engineered papers segment, but volumes produced in Spotswood were transitioned to other operations within the company’s global footprint that supported its new production process.
