Hartz Buys 110,370-SF Office Building

Located at 1200 E. Ridgewood Ave., directly across from the 600-acre Saddle River Park near the Garden State Parkway, the building is currently 99% occupied. Its tenant roster is headed by anchors Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Securities.

(For related Wachovia news, click on Philadelphia. Also see Atlanta.)

"With its diverse and stable tenant roster, its location and its Ridgewood address, Parkview Plaza is a one-of-a-kind asset," says Jeffrey R. Dunne, who heads CB Richard Ellis' Tri-State Investment Team. Dunne's group collaborated with the Waldwick-based Kwartler Associates to rep seller TA Associates. "It should be a great long-term performer for Hartz."

The buy represents a move into an untapped submarket for Hartz. The company owns some 35 million sf of space in New Jersey and New York, much of it located in the Meadowlands submarket to the south of here.

The deal also signals that Hartz is becoming a major player in the real estate investment buy-and-sell game. The Secaucus-based company is better known for its ground-up development, but the latest acquisition is its third major play in the last 10 months. Late last year, Hartz bought the 130,000-sf 15 Exchange Place in Downtown Jersey City. And just this past month the company sold its 212,000-sf, two-building Meadowlands Plaza office complex in Secaucus for a reported $30 million.

"We've traditionally preferred development to acquisition," confirms Hartz president and COO Emanuel Stern. "However, as developable land becomes more and more finite in northern New Jersey, firmly established class A properties like Parkview Plaza become more and more attractive to us."

The acquisition adds to what is one of the country's largest privately owned commercial real estate portfolios. That 35-million-sf total involves approximately 200 properties.