New Jersey Community Changes Hands for $85M
The property was the city's first office conversion project.
Veris Residential has completed the $85 million sale of Signature Place, a 197-unit, Class A multifamily community located in Morris Plains, N.J. to Berkshire Residential. CBRE advised Veris on the sale.
Jeffrey Dunne, Stuart MacKenzie, Eric Apfel and Travis Langer of CBRE Institutional Properties, in partnership with Roland Merchant and Tom Pryor of CBRE’s Investment Banking team led the efforts.
Signature Place came online in 2018 and is a part of the Northern New Jersey, Morristown submarket. Resident floor plans at the Signature Place include one to three-bedroom apartments averaging 1,000 square feet. Some units include balconies or terraces, and each apartment is fit with wood-plank floorings, in-unit laundry, high ceilings and tile bathrooms with bathtubs.
Common space amenities at the community include a fitness center with a yoga studio, a swimming pool, a golf simulator and private movie theater.. The pet friendly community also features pet amenities such as a pet spa, dog run and a walking trail.
READ ALSO: Where Office-to-Resi Conversions Are Growing Most—and Why
According to Yardi Research Data 30 units within Signature Place are registered as affordable and five are reserved for low-income households. As of June, the 15.7-acre property is approximately 95 percent leased, the same source shows.
Located at 250 Johnson Rd. in Morris Plains, N.J., the community is 10 minutes away from downtown Morristown with various retail, dining options and other entertainment experiences. Newark International Airport is 24 miles away and New York City is 33 miles away. Nearby in Jersey City, Panepinto Properties recently topped out 505 Summit. The property will come online next spring and includes 605-units.
A former office building
Signature Place was Morris Plains’s first office-to-residential conversion. The project kicked off in 2016 with Mack-Cali Realty Corp. and Roseland Residential Trust beginning the conversion process. Before its renovation, the property was a 75,000 square-foot office building, owned by Mack-Cali. In the years prior to its conversion, it was under performing as office space demand fell in the neighborhood.
The company was looking to conduct several similar projects with other properties in Northern Jersey at that time, depending on rezoning opportunities.
In 2019, JLL arranged a $43 million financing loan for Mack-Cali and Roseland to replace the previous construction loan the project had. The loan was a five-year fixed rate loan from Nationwide Life Insurance Company which reached its maturity in 2024.
Conversions continue to remain a popular adaptive reuse project across the county. In nearby Manhattan, a joint venture between RXR Realty, Apollo Global Management and SL Green obtained a $575 million in two separate deals to partially convert a 5 Times Square, a 1.1 million-square-foot office tower into 1,250 apartments. Phase one of the project is expected to be finished by 2027, benefitting from New York City’s Office Conversion Accelerator Program, which facilitates communication between the developers and City government.
