"It's always exciting to work on challenging assignments such as this," says HFF senior director Jon Mikula, who secured the financing from Fremont Investment & Loan. "In this case, we had a vacant office building with little or no leasing activity."
The building, which has been vacant since First Union moved out nearly six years ago, had been the subject of several on-again, off-again deals before Heritage finally bought it. Last year, for example, the Gale Co. was set to pick it up and reposition it with the Newark Board of Education as the anchor tenant. The latter, however, opted to remain in its existing location in a Hartz Mountain Industries-owned building elsewhere in downtown Newark.
Heritage officials say they plan to use part of the loan proceeds to reposition the building as a class A facility, much as the company has done at the adjacent 550 Broad St. The latter building, which Heritage bought from Tremont Capital for $23 million a couple of years ago, has gone from 50% to 90% leased since Heritage bought it, including an expanded presence by major tenant SBLI.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
