Jordan Zimmel, vice president, Zimmel Associates, with 655 Howard Avenue, Franklin Township, NJ Jordan Zimmel, vice president, Zimmel Associates, with 655 Howard Avenue, Franklin Township, NJ

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, NJ—Denholtz Associates has flipped 655 Howard Avenue, a 75,000 square-foot industrial building in Franklin Township, Somerset County, NJ, for $6.68 million after acquiring the building out of foreclosure last May and renovating the property. 

Zimmel Associates, an Edison, NJ-based corporate real estate services firm, brokered the sale for Denholtz, with Jordan Zimmel, vice president, representing the seller. The buyer, Bytech® International, an electronics accessories distributor, was represented by Chuck Fern of Cushman & Wakefield, Edison, NJ.

“This building has an exciting investment history and was recently renovated on a major scale,” says David Zimmel, CEO, Zimmel Associates. “This is the second sales transaction we have generated for 655 Howard Avenue in less than a year’s time.”

Jordan Zimmel first presented 655 Howard Avenue to Denholtz as an investment opportunity about two years ago. At that time, the building, a former manufacturing site of Acme Tube, was bank-owned as a result of foreclosure and had been vacant for more than a decade.

As previously reported by GlobeSt.com, Zimmel handled the sale of 655 Howard Avenue to Denholtz Associates in May of 2016, after the developer had made an extensive assessment of its renovation costs.  Denholtz received a grant from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection for remediation of the site and invested $1.5 million into a complete rehabilitation of the property including a new roof, heating, lighting, landscaping, electric, parking lot and paint.

“Denholtz is a long-term client of our firm and we are always on the lookout for investment properties for our clients,” says Jordan Zimmel. “The building had groundwater environmental issues, but in today’s hot industrial market, it offered excellent potential for a knowledgeable, experienced developer. Denholtz was willing to take on the challenge and it has worked out exceptionally well for all parties. We were given the exclusive to market the renovated building and had offers for both lease and purchase within three weeks.”

655 Howard Avenue has undergone environmental remediation, and major renovations have been made to the building from the ground up, many to suit Bytech’s requirements. Improvements include a new roof, new electric, a repaved parking lot, the addition of six new exterior tailboard-loading docks, a new sprinkler system, interior renovations, exterior painting and more.