Clark Machemer, senior vice president, Rockefeller Group, with rendering of the Archer Hotel being built at the company's The Green at Florham Park development, Florham Park, NJ Clark Machemer, senior vice president, Rockefeller Group, with rendering of the Archer Hotel being built at the company’s The Green at Florham Park development, Florham Park, NJ

FLORHAM PARK, NJ—Developers trying to revitalize suburban office parks need to be thinking outside the box about their renovation plans if they are to succeed, according to Clark F. Machemer, SVP and regional development officer of the Rockefeller Group Development Corp. Machemer is serving this year as president of the New Jersey NAIOP Chapter.

“In the markets where I’m working, you’re not finding a 700,000-square-foot user that wants to plop down somewhere,” he tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. Success, he says, comes from acknowledging the realities in suburban office space. “The partner that you need is a community that recognizes the changing real estate market that’s out there,” he says. “Florham Park has been able to adapt with us as we’ve changed our plan, not on a whim, but reflective of what the market is.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Machemer talked about the changing composition of Rockefeller’s major redevelopment effort, and discussed some of the regulatory initiatives NAIOP New Jersey is pursuing.

The Rockefeller Group is redeveloping The Green at Florham Park, a large tract of suburban office properties, mainly consisting of the 500-acre former Exxon/Mobil office campus in Florham Park, with about 200 acres of buildable land, Machemer says.

“When we first sat down and re-envisioned what we were doing, it was a pretty straightforward project,” he recalls. “We’re keeping a lot of the commercial space, adding a hotel, and active adult. What drove that was what the town was comfortable with, where the market was, and also looking at it from a traffic perspective. In suburban communities, you’re limited by traffic and infrastructure that’s there. As we’ve been moving forward on this project over time, we’ve come up with uses that I don’t think we ever would have envisioned when we started the process.”

The New York Jets have selected the site for the team’s new headquarters and training facility, and Machemer says he is still surprised at the idea of an NFL headquarters and five football fields on the property.

“The key is we are working with a very receptive community in Florham Park,” he says. “They recognize the benefits to the community of these changes that we’re putting in.”

BASF, the German chemical company, has also relocated its headquarters to the property. “They stepped forward with us and created one of the most sustainable buildings, not only in New Jersey, but in the country,” he says, calling the BASF building “double platinum” for its strict attention to LEED certification requirements.

The arrival of the boutique Archer Hotel encouraged Rockefeller Group to plan for a robust retail component on the site as well, he says.

Summit Medical Group, one of the largest medical practices in New Jersey, is also relocating to The Green. “They are taking 100,000 square feet,” he says. “Summit Medical Group has been acquiring many doctors’ practices under one roof, and that’s really due to the changes in the healthcare industry.”

The development team continues to work closely with local officials, Machemer says. “We’re fortunate with this upward trending market to be having a lot of different activity on site.”

In the podcast interview with Machemer in the player below, you can hear him discuss NAIOP New Jersey’s views on downtown business district redevelopment and speculative investment in industrial properties.