Real Estate equity fund Multi-Employer Property Trust made New Jersey history yesterday when it announced it had purchased the Newport Tower in Jersey City, New Jersey for $377.5 million.
The deal for the 1.08 million-square-foot, LEED Gold Certified office tower, located at 525 Washington Street in the Newport section of Jersey City, is the largest single office asset sale in state history. The bold statement was issued by CB Richard Ellis in a press release.
Brookfield Office Properties, the building’s previous owner, was represented by the Boston brokerage firm Bentall Kennedy.
Jeffrey Dunne, Kevin Welsh and Brian Schulz of CB Richard Ellis represented MEPT during the deal. CBRE will be retained by MEPT for the building’s leasing and management, according to the company.
First built in 1990, the 36-story Newport Tower, which has tenants like Bank of America (BAC) and AXA, was 89 percent leased at the time of the sale.
But the building’s owners felt that now was an “opportunistic” time to sell the building at record profit.
“This was the optimal time to monetize this mature asset,” said Dennis Friedrich, president and global CEO of Brookfield Office Properties, which owned and managed the building for six years.
The last office deal of this size took place in 2007, when a JP Morgan-managed fund sold a six-building office park to KBS REIT for $365 million in Florham Park, New Jersey. Jeffrey Dunne and CBRE represented the seller in that deal.
