The sale was arranged by the Chatham, NJ-based Garibaldi Group/Corfac International, which picked up the marketing assignment earlier this year. The seller is an institutional investor, which has not been identified.
"When we took on this assignment, we were concerned about 350,000 sf of vacant space in Monmouth County," Jeffrey J. Toia, SVP/director at Garibaldi, tells GlobeSt.com. Toia handled the assignment with the firm's president, Jeffrey J. Garibaldi, Gerald E. Moore, Jr., partner-financial services and Gerald A. Bower, Jr., vice president-capital markets.
"We knew Vonage was in the market for a large block of space, but we didn't know that they were working with Mack-Cali," Toia notes. "From that point on we worked closely with Mack-Cali to facilitate their completing a lease with Vonage."
"The acquisition and leasing of this property was a chance to capitalize on an opportunity in one of our core markets," says Mitchell E. Hersh, president/CEO of Mack-Cali. "These transactions enable us to further increase our holdings in Monmouth County, where we own 13 buildings totaling almost 1.4 million sf."
The final sale price was $23.75 million, or approximately $66 a foot. Vonage's lease runs for 12 years and five months, and calls for the company to initially occupy 262,000 sf, and then occupy the rest in a year when some short-term leasebacks by the building's seller expire. Mack-Cali also plans some general upgrades in connection with the Vonage lease.
As reported by GlobeSt.com, Vonage will move here from its current headquarters in Edison, NJ, where it currently houses a staff of 1,000. Internal estimates that the company will grow to 2,000 staffers by the end of this year prompted the move. The company provides service using Voice Over Internet Protocol to 550,000 customers in the US, Canada and UK, a number that's growing by 15,000 a week, according to the Vonage spokesman.
Built for Prudential in 1977, the two-story, four-wing 23 Main St. sits on an 88-acre site that has room for expansion. Besides its corporate offices, it will house Vonage's network operations, a call center, R&D and other functions.
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