CCI receives award nomination for $6 million upgrade

New
J
ersey
S
potlight
Shopping Centers
Northern
Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal — New Jersey ­­— March 15 - 28, 2013 — B
www.marejournal.com
Brach Eichler LLC and Geringer & Dolan LLP provide legal council
Gebroe-Hammer Associates arranges one of NJ’s
highest price-per-unit trades with $32 million sale
S
OUTH ORANGE, NJ
— In one of New Jersey’s most recent highest price-per-unit multi-family trades, Gebroe-Hammer
Associates has arranged the
$32 million sale of The Avenue
at South Orange, a 79-unit
luxury loft-style apartment
community with 4,000 s/f of
ground-floor retail space. The
brokerage team of Ken Uranowitz, president; Joseph
Brecher, managing director;
and David Jarvis, executive
vice president, exclusively
represented the seller, the
original builder, and identified
the buyer, who finalized a 1031
Exchange with the all-cash
acquisition.
“Boasting historically high
occupancy rates, The Avenue
garnered a price in excess of
$400,000 per-unit, thanks to
its transit-oriented location,
high quality lease profiles and
an array of on-site class A ame-
The Avenue at South Orange
nities,” said Uranowitz.
“We were able to match
the property type and urban
infill location with the other
requirements of the buyer, who
recently disposed of three New
York properties and sought a
high-performing New Jersey
asset to complete the back end
of the 1031 Exchange,” added
Brecher.
The Avenue at South Orange
has been the cornerstone of
South Orange’s pedestrianfriendly central business district revitalization program.
The municipality was among
the first in the state designated
as a Transit Village, demonstrating its commitment to revitalizing and redeveloping the
area around its transit facility
into a mixed-use neighborhood
with a strong residential component.
Legal counsel for the trade
was provided by Alan R.
Hammer, Esq., and Jeffrey
H. Itzkowitz, Esq., of Brach
Eichler LLC on behalf of the
seller, and John McNamara,
Esq., of Geringer & Dolan
LLP for the buyer. n
Commercial Construction receives award nomination
for $6 million upgrade of old Cedar Knolls building site
Hanover, NJ — Commercial Construction, Inc.
(CCI), headquartered in Morris Plains, headed by Michael
Walsh, president & CEO,
has been nominated for the
prestigious 2013 New Good
Neighbor Award – the award is
conferred annually by the New
Jersey Business & Industry
Association (NJBIA), for the
Top 10 Building projects in the
Garden State.
CCI was cited for its essential role in transforming an
antiquated, near vacant office/laboratory building, built
in 1946, to a modern showcase
medical office structure with
an impressive range of community involvement, at 197
Ridgedale Ave., Cedar Knolls
(Hanover).
Township of Hanover Mayor,
Ronald Francioli, nominated
the project and noted it had
turned around a broken real
estate relic to become a vibrant
member of the business community, while providing a host
of vital healthcare services,
and extending its hand as a
good corporate citizen by providing educational seminars.
With the enhancement of
CCI’s fast-track construction
197 Ridgedale Ave.
techniques and swift internal years, anchored the project by
fit-out capabilities, the build- occupying the entire 17,000 s/f
ing was finished in record time 3rd floor.
and changed completely from
The Sportscare, Inc., physical
80% vacant to 80% leased and rehabilitation center nurtures
occupied in just several months patients back on their feet
with a $6 million remake.
with treadmills that include
Now known as Advanced inflatable devices, allowing
Medical Center, 197 Ridgedale the machine to bear 80% of the
Ave. is an 80,000 s/f struc- patient’s body weight, the DRA
ture that houses 10 different of Morristown imaging center
medical offices, with leading offers a full range of diagnostic
physicians in their respective services capped by a 3 Tesla
fields, encompassing the most MRI. They each join The Surgicomplete array of health care cal Center at Cedar Knolls, a
modalities. Tri-County Ortho- three-room ambulatory surgipedics, a renowned practice in cal center, in the building. The
New Jersey for more than 20 building was given a new look,
and a fresh feel including the
transformation of an unsightly
loading dock area into a stunning new entrance for the
South Wing. Building systems
were also brought up-to-date by
installing new elevators, and a
new upgraded HVAC system.
CCI crowned the original
3-story facility with a new
penthouse conference center,
accessed by its own directroute elevator, to transport
special visitors, students, the
public and staff members for
a variety of events, including
educational seminars on health
concerns such as nutrition and
illness prevention. There will
also be a Bio-Skills Lab, an
advanced teaching environment for medical students and
physicians with regard to innovative surgical procedures
and products.
Walsh’s firm has a successful
track record for over 20 years
and in this case was more than
up to the challenge of making
a tired, old industrial site,
a ‘people friendly’ building.
Minimizing energy ‘leakage’
in an obsolete structure was
another ‘must do’ objective,
Walsh points out.
CCI completely re-roofed the
building, harnessed computerized controls for all infrastructure systems operations; also,
visitors are now welcomed
through automatic doors and
there is an easy to navigate
ramp access as well. Energyefficient lighting is a building
staple, as were sustainable
materials built into the renovation. The CCI team added an
elaborate café with comfortable
seating as well.
Mayor Francioli, in his nomination letter, called the project
an exciting example of what
real estate professionals term
‘adaptive re-use’ i.e. taking a
non-productive real estate asset and brainstorming a way
to jumpstart its economic and
societal viability once again.
That’s one of the great hopes
for the continuing to slump
office marketplace, and this is
living proof it can be done.
The building ownership,
197 Ridgedale Ave., LLC,
represents a unique fusion of
divergent backgrounds, including lead physicians from the
building and commercial real
estate executives from Commercial Real Estate Group
(CRG), NJ-based building owners and operators. n