MORRISTOWN, NJ−While northern New Jersey's office marketed profited - in big ways - from the state's Grow NJ incentives in the first quarter, the Central NJ market had the larger share of small- to medium-sized transactions, says Avison Young.

The Morristown-based commercial real estate firm says the exception to the general rule in central Jersey occurred, of course, in the evergreen Princeton office market. In Q1, NRG Energy signed a 15-year lease for a spacious new 130,000-square-foot office building to be constructed by Boston Properties at Carnegie Center.

The area around the Metro Park train station stayed lively, led by One World Trade Center anchor tenant Conde Nast lease of 30,383 square feet at Woodbridge Corporate Plaza.

Elsewhere, a number of smaller leases led to a decrease in the vacancy rate to 18.7%, an improvement from the 20.3% recorded one year ago, according to AY's Q1 report..

Asking rents were up for the second consecutive quarter in central Jersey, averaging a two-year high of $22.57 per square foot.

Asking rents also increased to in northern NJ, to $23.83 per square foot, according to AY, which pegged that as the highest rate since Q1 of 2011.

Vacancy rates in the northern part of the state were ups lightly for the quarter, to 22.6% from 22.3%, mostly due to more than 900,000 square feet of soon-to-be-vacated Prudential space in Newark,

In northern NJ, the headliner among incentives-driven deals was Forbes signing a 10-year lease for 93,000 square feet at Lefrak's 499 Washington Boulevard in Jersey City, which is located beside a PATH station. Also in Jersey City, Quidsi, operating as Diapers.com, renewed its lease and expanded into 94,000 square feet at 10 Exchange Place.

Thomson Reuters committed to 72,000 square feet in Hoboken and IDT Energy renewed a 75,000-square-foot lease in Newark.

In the suburbs, AY notes in its Q1 report, Morris County in particular saw increased activity, with Merck pharmaceutical company leasing 150,000 square feet at 2 Giralda Farms in Madison in space previously occupied by Maersk, which is relocating to a 70,000-square-foot space at 180 Park Avenue in Florham Park.

Merck also leased 120,000 square feet formerly occupied by IMS Health at 11 Waterview Boulevard in Parsippany. IMS is staying in the area, taking 60,634 square feet at 100 Interpark Boulevard – a 76,000-sf property once known as the “skeleton” of Parsippany after construction stopped during a mid-1980's recession. The property was redeveloped in 2008..

Instant Insights /

AY: NJ Office Market Varies North and Central

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