CoreWeave Buys N.J. Data Center Site for $322M

CoreWeave, a company specializing in AI cloud computing, has purchased a research & development building that is part of the Northeast Science & Technology Center (NEST) campus in Kenilworth, N.J., as well as an adjacent 27 acres for $322 million.

Newmark’s Andrew Warin, Josh King, Brent Mayo, Doug Harmon and Jordan Roeschlaub brokered the deal for the seller, according to a source with knowledge of the deal, and Cushman & Wakefield brokered the deal for the buyer. A joint venture between Onyx Equities, Machine Investment Group and Pivot Real Estate Partners sold the property. JLL is the broker for the rest of the campus. 

The R&D building spans 280,736 square feet at 11 Nest Drive. NEST defines it as 80 percent lab/warehouse/manufacturing space, and 20 percent office, with 20-foot floor-to-floor heights.

The complete 12-building, 102-acre, Class A NEST campus at 2000 Galloping Hill Road in Kenilworth occupies over 2 million square feet, including 1.5 million square feet of laboratory, manufacturing and data center space, and over 500,000 square feet of Class A office space. The campus, which has its own 50 megawatt (MW) substation, once served as the global headquarters of pharmaceutical company Merck.

CoreWeave signed a long-term lease for the entire building in October 2024, announcing plans at the time to spend $1.2 billion to convert the building into a data center. The partnership of Onyx, Machine and Pivot, which purchased the campus in February 2023 for $187.5 million, was to contribute $50 million toward the conversion. The announcement at the time said that PSE&G, the area’s electricity utility, was “readying the area’s electrical infrastructure to support the [facility’s] energy needs.” 

“CoreWeave’s commitment to invest over a billion dollars at the NEST campus demonstrates New Jersey’s leading role in artificial intelligence, and our innovation strategies are working,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in the October 2024 statement. “Through collaboration with utilities, government, investors and real estate developers, we’re committed to attracting businesses that will build an innovation economy for the future.”

This has been a robust summer of investment for CoreWeave. On July 7, CoreWeave announced that it was acquiring Core Scientific, a leading data center infrastructure provider, in an all-stock transaction that is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, and that “implies a total equity value of approximately $9 billion” as of July 3.  

Just one week later, CoreWeave announced a commitment to invest more than $6 billion to equip a new, state-of-the-art data center in Lancaster, Pa. The center will have the capacity for 100 MW of power with potential to expand to 300 MW, making it “one of the first large-scale data centers of its kind in the region,” and one that will be intended to “support U.S. global competitiveness in AI,” according to the announcement. The center is also expected to create “approximately 600 skilled, competitively waged jobs during the build phase, with approximately 70 full-time technical and operational roles at launch, scaling to approximately 175 over time.” 

Commercial Property Executive was first to report the 11 Nest Drive deal.

CoreWeave did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Newmark declined to comment. 

UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect a correction about the brokers on the deal by Newmark.

Larry Getlen can be reached at lgetlen@commercialobserver.com