PREI Buys 83-Acre, 347,000-SF Rhodia Site

As part of the deal, Rhodia, which has its worldwide headquarters in Paris, retains an option to lease back up to 100,000 sf of office space and 50,000 sf of lab space from PREI. Financial details were not disclosed, but industry sources estimate that the property likely traded for a number in the $35-million range.

PREI completed the acquisition with no zoning contingencies, according to Michael O'Neill, founder and chairman of the Conshohocken, PA-based company. PREI will unveil its specific plans for the rest of the site "soon," O'Neill says. The site includes some 2,000 feet of highway frontage along the well-traveled New Jersey Turnpike, between exits 8 and 8A. "This strategically visible location offers the biggest land opportunity on the Turnpike," O'Neill says.

Coupled with some other recent major acquisitions, the Rhodia buy puts to rest speculation that PREI is in a selling mode. That speculation arose recently when the company shed 20 properties totaling 3.5 million sf of office space to the Wilmington, DE-based Buccini/Pollin Group.

"We are not cashing out," Erik Kolar, PREI's president, told GlobeSt.com last month. "We'll spend between $350 million and $500 million in total acquisition and development costs this year."

The Rhodia site pick-up also marks the second major acquisition by PREI in New Jersey in a little more than six months. As reported by GlobeSt.com this past fall, the company spent $16 million to acquire the 388-acre former Ingersoll-Rand industrial site in Phillipsburg. The company took over the redevelopment of the vacated site, renamed Phillipsburg Commerce Park, a project that Ingersoll-Rand had itself started. PREI has indicated that it would spend upwards of $200 million to complete the redevelopment.