The property owner is New York City-based Lexington Corporate Properties Trust. The facility includes 40,000 sf of office space and an additional 196,000-sf mezzanine. It was built in 1982 and is located on 15.6 acres in the Keystone Industrial Park, which is ten minutes from access to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Route 1 and bridges to New Jersey.
An earlier report that the building is for sale was based on a miscommunication from Binswanger. GlobeSt.com was unable to ascertain the remaining term on the Jones Apparel lease or when the building will become vacant. A call to Jones was not returned by deadline. The plan to sublease follows a restructuring of the apparel manufacturing and distribution firm and comes just days before a second round of bidding for acquisition of the company is expected to occur.
This March, Jones hired Goldman, Sachs & Co. as an advisor in evaluating a possible sale of the company. During an April 26 first-quarter conference call, Peter Boneparth, president and CEO, said the company planned to cut costs by $30 million this year and by more than $100 million by the end of 2007. Within that plan, according to an April 28 SEC filing, was "closure of distribution facilities and certain offices" along with consolidation of facilities. Cost-cutting measures are to "offset the impact of department store consolidations," Boneparth said.
A first round of bidding for the company was completed in late April, and, according to published reports, a second round is expected on Friday, May 26 with bids estimated at between $35 a share and $38 a share, which would take it to the $4-billion range.
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