Tom Reilly of CB Richard Ellis represented Barnes & Noble in the transaction, while Jim Nugent and Tim Conklin served as the in-house leasing reps for the owner of the new 133,738-sf class A 120 Mountain View Blvd., the Gale Co. of Florham Park, NJ. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The major signing comes just as the Gale Co. and investment partner J.P. Morgan Fleming have gotten the necessary approvals to expand their Mountain View Corporate Center. Those approvals cover an unspecified number of buildings ranging in size from 58,000 to 212,000 sf on four parcels of land, with a total building space allocation of 565,000 sf. No development timeline has been announced.

"This lease closed in one of the most challenging leasing climates in recent memory," says Mark Yeager, president and chief investment officer for the Gale Co.

Barnes & Noble College Bookstores' new home is located in Somerset County at the crossroads of I-78, I-287 and Route 202/206. Corporate neighbors include MetLife, Chubb, Affinity Federal Credit Union, Everest Reinsurance, Morgan Stanley, Lucent Technologies, Fedders Corp. and Verizon Wireless.

Barnes & Noble College Bookstores operates units at more than 400 colleges and universities, including such prestigious institutions as Columbia, UCLA, Yale, the University of Chicago, Harvard and MIT. Within the Garden State, the company operates bookstores at the College of New Jersey, Kean University and Camden County College.