185 Tabor Road in Morris Plains — Courtesy: Vision Real Estate Partners
By Joshua Burd
A joint venture has closed on its purchase of a former Johnson & Johnson campus in Morris Plains, where it’s planning a redevelopment anchored by an existing Class A office building.
PCCP LLC and Vision Real Estate Partners on Thursday announced their acquisition of 185 and 201 Tabor Road, a 66-acre corporate campus composed of two properties. Those include a modern, 240,000-square-foot office building that will be marketed to new tenants and a series of older buildings slated for demolition to pave the way for newly developed commercial space.
Terms were not disclosed.
Johnson & Johnson sold the campus, which is immediately adjacent to Honeywell’s new global headquarters in the borough. PCCP and Vision Real Estate hope to capitalize on a location that is also within walking distance of the Morris Plains train station and 10 minutes from the intersection of interstates 287 and 80, with immediate access to Routes 202 and 10.
“Our joint venture viewed this as an opportunity to acquire a vacant high-quality asset in 185 Tabor Road at an attractive basis well below replacement cost,” said Ryan Dodge, vice president with PCCP. “We also see further upside through a redevelopment/rezoning opportunity in 201 Tabor Road, which, once repositioned, we believe that we will see strong interest from local market occupiers.”
A Cushman & Wakefield equity, debt and structured finance team of John Alascio, Sridhar Vankayala and Noble Carpenter III acted as exclusive advisor to Vision Real Estate Partners in arranging joint venture equity for the acquisition.
The joint venture touted the existing building at 185 Tabor Road, which was built in 2006, as one of the newest and highest-quality office buildings in Morris County, featuring institutional quality finishes and amenities, layouts and building systems. The property also has adjacent structured parking with 892 spaces.
The second parcel includes buildings constructed in phases from the 1950s to the 1990s, which are connected and total 644,000 square feet on about 45 acres. As part of the redevelopment, the new owners have proposed developing manufacturing, warehouse and office space for the fragrance company Mane USA.
“What makes the campus special is its prime location in a neighborhood where established corporate users are already flourishing,” said Vision Real Estate Partners’ Sam Morreale, founder and managing partner. “This creates great potential for redevelopment. And building upon the impressive in-place infrastructure will allow corporate users to leverage the historical capital already invested here.
“We look forward to launching our plans to integrate and transform the campus to offer a mix of high-tech office, lab and light industrial space in an amenity-rich environment.”
Morreale touted the history and corporate cachet of the site, which has also been owned by Warner-Lambert and Pfizer. The immediate area houses several headquarters locations and campuses, along with corporate users in the financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, biotech, telecommunications, electronics and transportation sectors.
“Vision Real Estate Partners continues to redefine the landscape of redeveloping large obsolete office campus parks in the Tri-State region,” said Alascio, executive managing director for Cushman & Wakefield. “PCCP was able to build on this investment thesis and foundation in a newly formed joint venture and will bring capital expertise and resources to execute on the business plan.”
