Small and medium-sized firms have been gobbling up space inrenovated pre-World War II buildings in downtown Newark for months,and with space drying up the market appears poised for new officeconstruction. If the G&W project goes forward, it would be thefirst new Downtown office building in a decade. The last one wasHartz Mountain's Blue Cross/Blue Shield building, built back in theearly 1990s.

Gale & Wentworth co-founder Stan Gale has already indicatedpublicly that his company has been talking to several large spaceusers regarding long-term commitments for a new building. Even inthis tight market, it's unlikely such a project would get off theground without significant pre-leasing as a prerequisite forgetting major lenders interested. According to Gale, "we arelooking at several other projects in Newark, and have several largeusers working with us."

The site is adjacent to the Legal Communications Building nearNewark's Penn Station and the existing Gateway office complex.G&W and Tishman Speyer own two of the four Gateway buildings,and recently sold Gateway 3. The new structure will probably bearthe Gateway name as well, according to Gale.