Unilever Signs 122,000 SF in Lease Deals in Trumbull

Jay Hruska, executive director of C&W, who represented Unilever in the lease deals, notes that the Commerce Drive properties are located across the street from 40 Merritt Blvd., a 107,000-sf facility Unilever acquired last year. Currently, the building is being expanded to 200,000 sf to facilitate the consolidation of the company's Global Skin research operations. David A. Mack represented the buildings ownership in the two lease transactions.

In December, Unilever Home and Personal Care announced it was relocating its North American headquarters at 33 Benedict Ave. in Greenwich to its Trumbull campus. A total of 400 employees from the company's Greenwich headquarters will be shifted to its five-building Trumbull campus. The headquarters relocation of staff will begin in the second quarter of this year. In addition, another 200 workers from the company's Global Skin and Laundry divisions based in Edgewater and Englewood Cliffs, NJ, will be transferred to the 40 Merritt Blvd. building. Unilever is expanding that property to create a Global Innovation Center there. With the two lease deals, Unilever now owns or leases approximately 525,000 sf of office space in the city.

"Through the signing of these two new leases at 45 and 50 Commerce Dr., Unilever has accomplished its strategic objective of consolidating its regional operations into Trumbull, with room for future growth," Hruska says. "C&W was charged with an extensive strategic evaluation over the past two years resulting in over one million sf of acquisition and disposition activity in New Jersey and Connecticut related to this consolidation. Unilever concluded that Trumbull was the best-suited location for its current and future space needs."