Joseph Nitti, vice president in the Iselin, NJ office of CB Richard Ellis, negotiated the five-year lease worth an aggregate of $1.1 million for the owner of the property, Edison Equities. SBWE represented the Event Media Inc.

The lease, which brought the 166,000-sf building to 97% occupancy, was actually the culmination of a series of transactions that had recently left large blocks of space vacant. Back in January, a lease expiration left 40,000 sf open, but that space was quickly taken a month later by At Home International, a tableware manufacturing company.

Then, Pentech Inc., a manufacturer of writing implements, was acquired, and with two years left on its lease departed to put yet another 40,000 sf block back on the market. After Pentech inquired about a buy-out of its lease, Nitti negotiated a cash payment to conclude that transaction. Finally, just a week later, Event Media Inc. took the vacant space at substantially more per sf than Pentech had been paying before its departure.

"The net effect of this series of deals is that the building, using the rent rolls and a 10-cap, is now worth about $8.5 million, or about $2 million more than it was worth before we did these deals," according to Nitti.

Building owner Edison Equities occupies about half of the building for its own use as a distributor of cameras and accessories to mass merchandisers. Located near the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and I-287, the largely industrial facility has about 11,500 sf built out for office use.