The West Conshohocken, PA-based REIT is paying a group of entities controlled by Lawrence Berger, a Morristown, NJ-based lawyer and businessman, $106 million for the assets. Berger has been in the news during the last year because of financial problems related to his real estate and other holdings. The buildings that are changing hands, meanwhile, are currently 96% leased to a variety of industrial tenants, with an average lease term of more than seven years.

"This was a very complex transaction that has been in the works for more than a year," according to John P. DiCola, SVP of Keystone. "The portfolio encompasses several large bulk distribution assets with stable long-term leases, as well as some well-located in-fill assets with real value creation opportunities.

"We are especially pleased to increase our ownership of bulk warehouse product in New Jersey," DiCola continues. "With this acquisition, our portfolio in Northern New Jersey stands at more than five million sf, and when combined with our assets in Central New Jersey, our total ownership in the state is approaching 10 million sf."

Besides the Bridgewater building, the other properties in Central New Jersey include a 406,000-sf property on Middlesex Ave. in Carteret, and two buildings of 120,300 sf and 92,500 sf respectively in Edison.

In Northern New Jersey, meanwhile, the buy includes two buildings (109,160 and 35,350 sf) in Carlstadt; and two buildings (335,000 and 93,250 sf in Clifton. The transaction is rounded out by a 119,600-sf facility in Whippany, and individual buildings of 45,700 sf and 44,500 sf in Hanover and Oakland respectively.

"This acquisition required us to use all of our deal-making capabilities in a period of very active capital redeployment," says Jeffrey E. Kelter, Keystone's CEO. "Since we closed on the sale of our Upstate New York office portfolio 90 days ago, we've invested more than $260 million in seven different transactions. In the last three months we've increased our market penetration in New Jersey and Pennsylvania by more than five million sf of institutional quality bulk warehouse assets."

Keystone currently has a portfolio of some 120 properties, including properties under development, totaling about 27 million sf. The company's current holdings in New Jersey are cleared for development of up to another 2.7 million sf.