Morris Will Develop $72M Business Complex on Brownfields Site

PERTH AMBOY, NJ-The Morris Cos., based in Rutherford, NJ, has signed a redevelopment agreement with this city to turn a 70-acre, Chevron-owned brownfields site into a $72 million office and warehouse complex. Named Amboy Corporate Center, the proposed project is located along Route 35 here.

According to Joseph D. Morris, chairman and principal of Morris, his company is under contract to buy the site from Chevron for an undisclosed price. The two companies have agreed to speed up the process of remediating the site, which Chevron used for many years as a refinery. Those operations have been drastically reduced in scope over the past two decades.

The deal also calls for a three-way land swap, with Chevron agreeing to donate an acre of land to the city for construction of a new firehouse. In return, the city’s redevelopment agency will give Morris Cos. a half-acre of land nearby.

Site plans remain incomplete, including the actual size of the complex, which sources say will be in excess of 600,000 sf. Sitework is expected to be under way by the end of the year, and Morris is projecting a three-year build-out. Morris is targeting high-tech, distribution and manufacturing users to fill the site, and company officials say they have already had “substantial interest.” City officials project that the new complex will generate as many as 1,000 jobs and add more than $1 million a year in tax revenues.