#b#Graphics Drive Fills Up#/b#
More than 46,000 square feet of office space has been leased to two tenants at 7 Graphics Drive in Ewing.
Cenlar FSB, which provides mortgage and loan subservicing, has leased nearly 41,000 square feet on a long-term basis as an adjunct space to its headquarters building at 475 Phillips Boulevard. Denise Vaccaro, marketing director for Cenlar, said the site will be a second location for Cenlar, which employs more than 400. Steve Tolkach, managing principal of Newmark Knight Frank’s Carnegie Center office, was the tenant representative for Cenlar.
Also new to 7 Graphics Drive is GeoSyntec, an Atlanta-based environmental engineering firm that has moved its Mercer County office from 3131 Princeton Pike. GeoSyntec signed a long-term lease for 5,472 square feet there. Newmark’s John Calvo, Tolkach, and Dave Saltzman represented Geosyntec. John Cunningham of Colliers International represented BioMed Realty Trust, the property owner.
The two signings bring the 72,000-square-foot building to near full occupancy.
#b#BMS to Cut 840 Jobs#/b#
Barely two weeks after Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired its hepatitis drug partner ZymoGenetics in an $885 million deal, the pharma giant has announced that it will eliminate 840 positions companywide.
The cuts represent about 3 percent of the company’s overall workforce, but the round of cuts is the third in about four years for BMS.The cuts are expected over the next six months, but the company has not announced where the cuts will occur or what positions will be eliminated.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY), Route 206 and Province Line Road, Box 4000, Princeton 08543-4000; 609-252-4000. Elliott Sigal MD, chief scientific officer, president, R&D. Home page: www.bms.com
#b#Lawrenceville Water Shuts Off the Tap#/b#
Lawrenceville Water Company, a private water company that operated four private wells and drew 500,000 gallons daily from Elizabethtown Water, is no more. The company was acquired by Aqua New Jersey, based on Black Forest Road in Hamilton, in a deal announced last year.
Aqua New Jersey now provides water to 8,000 people living in the village of Lawrenceville and in parts of Lawrence Township.
William Davis, president of the company, says that Aqua New Jersey serves some 160,000 residences in 18 New Jersey municipalities, including Hamilton and Robbinsville. The company is a part of Aqua America, a publicly traded company (NYSE:WRT) based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Lawrenceville Water Company, 12 Gordon Avenue, Lawrenceville.
Aqua New Jersey Inc. (WTR), 10 Black Forest Road, Hamilton 08691; 609-587-5406; fax, 609-587-0689. William Davis, president. Home page: www.aquanewjersey.com
#b#Acquisitions#/b#
SAI Global, 101 Morgan Lane, Suite 301, Princeton North Plaza, Plainsboro 08536; 609-955-5100; fax, 609-924-9207. Andy Wyszkowski, global head of compliance. www.midicorp.com
SAI Global, which develops web-based multi-media learning tools for ethics and compliance, has acquired Massachusetts-based Integrity Interactive for an undisclosed sum.
SAI and Integrity were the top two firms in the field of business ethics and compliance management, and the acquisition, according to SAI, combines software-based texts into a library available in 40 languages.
The acquisition now give SAI locations in Plainsboro, Waltham, MA, England, and Australia.
Rosetta, 100 American Metro Boulevard, Suite 201, Hamilton 08619; 609-689-6100; fax, 609-631-0184. Christopher B. Kuenne, president. www.rosettamarketing.com
Rosetta, a marketing consulting and strategy development firm based in Hamilton’s American Metro Station, has acquired Level Studios of San Luis Obispo, CA, for an undisclosed amount. However, according to Rosetta, Level Studios employs 215 people in California and was on pace to bring in $45 million in revenue this year.
Rosetta CEO Chris Kuenne said the companies will spend the rest of 2010 learning about one another and will begin working on projects together in the first half of 2011. The companies should be fully integrated by 2012.
#b#Expansion#/b#
NRG Energy Inc. (NRG), 211 Carnegie Center, Princeton 08540-6213; 609-524-4500; fax, 609-524-4501. David Crane, president and CEO. www.nrgenergy.com
Carnegie Center-based energy company NRG has agreed to pay $350 million for Green Mountain Energy, a renewable energy supplier based in Austin, Texas, that had made significant headway in the New York and New Jersey markets when energy services regulations opened new markets about a decade ago.
Green Mountain was the first serious alternative-source energy provider in the state to challenge PSE&G’s stranglehold on the New Jersey power market. Since then the company has built a variety of renewable energy sources including wind, solar, and biomass. Its customers support renewable energy and carbon offset projects across the United States.
NRG already has a strong presence in Texas. Its retail business, Reliant Energy, serves nearly 1.6 million residential, business, commercial and industrial customers there. Consequently, NRG plans to run Green Mountain as a standalone company. According to NRG, Green Mountain is expected to contribute annual pretax earnings of $70 million.
The deal is subject to approval by government regulators. NRG expects the deal to close in November.
#b#Management Moves#/b#
BeneCard Services, 3131 Princeton Pike, Building 2B, Suite 103, Lawrenceville 08648; 609-219-0400; fax, 609-219-1788. Bruce Roberts, president and CEO. www.benecard.com
Bruce Roberts, former CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), has been named the new president and CEO of BeneCard, a prescription benefits facilitator headquartered in Florida with an office at 3131 Princeton Pike in Lawrenceville.
Roberts replaces Dave Carlin.
A longtime advocate for benefits management reform, Roberts is a pharma entrepreneur who first established his business in Virginia 24 years ago. At the NCPA he helped found Surescripts, which champions E-prescriptions,and Mirixa, which facilitates communication between the pharmacist and the payer.
New Jersey Network, 25 South Stockton Street, CN 777, Trenton 08625-0777; 609-777-5000; fax, 609-633-2921. Janice Selinger, acting director.
On September 13 Janice Selinger, right, was sworn in as acting executive director of NJN Public Television and Radio and acting interim president of the NJN Foundation. Selinger, a 31-year veteran of the state television and radio public broadcasting outlet who most recently served as acting COO, takes over for Howard Blumenthal, whose interim term of one year expired on September 17.
NJN, which has caught the eye of the Christie administration as excess state baggage, is at a crossroads. Christie wants to shed the network and see it become a private enterprise, but has met resistance to the idea so far. The appointment of Selinger is NJN’s attempt to infuse the network with new leadership and, it hopes, spur a shift back to mainly New Jersey-centered programming. The network has taken some flak over the years for its generalized, PBS content that has left the NJN evening newscast one of the few entirely New Jersey-focused programs it airs.
Selinger joined NJN in 1979 as deputy director for production and producer of national and local documentaries for the network. She recently produced Decoding Autism, the network’s latest documentary, as well as NJ Fresh!, a new series on New Jersey’s farmers markets, farmers and chefs who cook with local food.
Prior to joining NJN, Selinger was on the staff of WCBS-TV in New York, where she was associate producer for consumer affairs show, On Your Side with John Stossel.She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State and a masters in public administration from Rutgers, where she also has taught communications.
#b#Name Changes#/b#
Irvin Raphael Inc., 20 Nami Lane, Mercerville 08619; 609-584-9636; fax, 609-584-9637. Irvin Raphael, owner. www.raphaelbus.com
Jody’s Inc., a school bus company based on Nami Lane in Hamilton, is now Irvin Raphael Inc. Raphael also has a location in East Brunswick.
#b#Solar News#/b#
The Lawrenceville School has announced it will build a 30-acre solar power farm on its campus. The school signed a purchase agreement with TurtleEnergy of Manasquan for a project expected to cost roughly $30 million. Construction is set to begin this winter.
According to the school, the solar farm will utilize single axis “solar trackers” which follow the sun’s path, boosting output. Fully operational, the solar array is expected to provide 90 percent of the school’s electricity needs.
The 30-acre site will be part of a 268-acre agricultural farm on the school’s 700-acre campus. School officials say the solar array will make the farm invisible from Route 206 and only partially visible from Lewisville Road. The school hopes to be able to continue farming of either crops or livestock near the solar trackers.
Frank Millard, president of TurtleEnergy, and an alumnus of Lawrenceville’s Class of 1949 is working on the project with his son, John Millard, a founder of TurtleEnergy and a member of the school’s Class of 1979.
#b#Deaths#/b#
Robert Nelson, 85, on September 22. He founded Nelson Glass & Aluminum Co. on Nassau Street in 1949, relocating to the current location on Spring Street in 1960. In 1992, his daughter, Roberta, continues to run the business with the assistance of Alice Kent.
Dennis Benster, 54, on September 22. He was employed for the past 25 years as a senior investigator with the Department of Banking and Insurance.
