Law Firm Leases 54,000 SF for HQ

FLORHAM PARK, NJ-After some four decades in Newark, the law firm of Saiber LLC is headed for the suburbs. According to a report by njlj.com, the website of the New Jersey Law Journal, the 60-lawyer firm has signed a lease for 54,000 square feet at Kushner Properties’ 18 Columbia Turnpike, and will move its headquarters here by November.

While Newark has traditionally been a hub for the legal community, “Saiber has decided it wants to be closer to the center of the state, from which it can branch out in several directions,” the firm’s managing partner, William Maderer, tells njlj.com. “The firm’s lawyers regularly appear in federal court in Trenton and Camden as well as Newark, and have business in all state court vicinages as well.

“In September, I tried a case for a month in Trenton,” Maderer says. “The fact that I was in Newark was totally irrelevant. I could have been in Oshkosh–it would make no difference.”

The firm had been looking for new space for about a year, scouting sites in Morris, Essex and Middlesex counties, according to Maderer. He declined to discuss the terms of the lease, but calls the deal “very favorable.” The space at the three-story, 159,000-square-foot class A building had been listed with an asking price of $32 per square foot, with a term through December 2022.

The new space is about 20% more than Saiber currently occupies at One Gateway Center in Newark, “allowing for continued lateral expansion of our litigation and transactional law groups,” Maderer says. “The high ceilings and luxurious fixtures and amenities make the quarters a marked improvement over our present offices.”

While vacating most of its One Gateway Center space, Saiber does intend to keep a functioning office at One Gateway Center, a 30-story, 467,000-square-foot tower owned by the Bedminster-based Advance Realty Group. The firm may end up staying in smaller quarters at the building, where it currently occupies two-and-a-half floors, “but that depends on whether a suitable arrangement can be worked out with the landlord,” Maderer says. “If not, the firm will explore other options.”

Once occupied by the FBI, One Gateway went vacant in 2002 when that agency moved to a new tower nearby. Advance bought the asset, part of the four-building Gateway Center in Newark’s downtown, in 2002 from the Gale Co. and Tishman Speyer, and launched a major makeover in 2004.

Saiber’s new space, meanwhile, was once largely occupied by Kushner, which still owns and manages the property and maintains a reduced on-site presence.