Corrections or additions?
These articles were prepared for the November 10, 2004 issue of
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Life in the Fast Lane
The Patrinely Group officially broke ground on October 25 on a 167,000
square-foot building, the first of five buildings on 75 acres between
College Road and Scudders Mill Road. It is the first on-spec office
park to be launched in Princeton in five years.
To be called Princeton Corporate Campus at Forrestal Center, the park
will consist of five, five-story buildings totaling 800,000 square
feet. The first, at 1100 Campus Road, is due to be completed next
fall. In addition to the requirements for any new Class A space, it
will have food service and a fitness center.
“The building is geared to larger users who can’t fulfill their space
needs elsewhere,” says Benjamin, Patrinely’s senior vice president.
“In the class A market there are very few if any large blocks of
contiguous space.” The asking price is $34.50 per foot plus tenant
electric.
Most recently the Patrinely Group built 100 and 150 College Road East,
where Novo Nordisk and American Reinsurance are the major tenants.
Four years ago they began to work on the north campus, Benjamin says.
Based on his experience with the two College Road buildings, he chose
to have five-story buildings with 32,000 feet on each floor. That size
provides economy of scale and is good for the Princeton market. “There
are a lot of tenants in the 20,000 to 50,000 foot range,” says
Benjamin. “In this building, a 60,000 square-foot tenant can take two
floors instead of four.”
“We are in year six of a formerly five-year partnership, and we think
this is a very solid sign of how good Patrinely is for the Princeton
market,” says David Knights, director of marketing for the Princeton
Forrestal Center. Most of the Forrestal Center land on both sides of
the highway belongs to the university, but Patrinely bought the 11
acres for 1100 Campus Road, just as it did for College Road West.
Knights points out that the university did sell land on Scudders Mill
Road to Merrill Lynch and Bristol-Myers Squibb, to Siemens and Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation on College Road, and to Windrows, the senior
residential complex adjacent to College Road East.
The project is a joint venture of Patrinely Group and USAA Real Estate
Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of USAA Insurance Company, a $79
billion financial institution in San Antonio. “Dean Patrinely has an
over 20 year relationship with USAA, and they are terrific partners,”
says Benjamin.
The exterior will be a combination of precast concrete, glass, metal
panels, and granite in a champagne palette. The design is by Terry
Steelman, the former Hillier architect who designed the Bristol-Myers
Squibb complex on Scudders Mill Road and is now with Ballinger in
Philadelphia. A Philadelphia-based company that built 750 College
Road, L. F. Driscoll, has the construction contract.
Bradford Fenlon, first vice president of CB Richard Ellis, will market
the property in New Jersey and Stephen B. Siegel is in charge of the
New York and national campaign.
“We are excited about such a well-designed project coming through our
planning process and are delighted to see it underway,” says Peter
Cantu, Plainsboro’s mayor.
Not every groundbreaking is followed by swift completion, as can be at
the Reckson site on the corner of Alexander Road and Route 1, where
construction ended shortly after it began. Gerald Fennelly of NAI
Fennelly suggests that the developers are really trying to time their
delivery to the following year, 2006.
“The Plainsboro vacancy rate is fairly high for Class A and Class B
space,” says Fennelly. “They are hoping to come to completion at a
time when quality space is very limited, to give the market a chance
to rebound. Construction will go at a certain speed, depending on how
the market is doing.”
“Once started,” counters Knights of Princeton Forrestal Center, “they
are really going to go, because there is a stigma to not finishing.”
He remembers watching Princeton Overlook progress at a snail’s pace.
“I can’t get over driving by month after month and seeing only one
pickup truck in the lot, and no progress. It gives brokers and
prospective tenants no confidence that promises made about occupancy
can be kept.”
“Nine to twelve month delivery is pretty comfortable for us,” says
Patrinely’s Benjamin. “We delivered both 100 and 150 College Road in
nine months, and they started out as spec buildings. Shortly after
they commenced we signed leases.”
Patrinely Group, 150 College Road West, Suite 150,Princeton 08540. Phillip Benjamin, senior vice president.609-514-1799; fax, 609-514-1791. Home page: www.patrinely.comTop Of PageNew in Town: Euro LLCBodi Mihov has opened an office/workshop for custom-made orthotics andprosthetics at Montgomery commons. Euro O&P is a new company that doescustom made devices ordered by podiatrists or orthopedic surgeons.Trained as a mechanical engineer in Sofia, Bulgaria, Mihov wasintroduced to the prosthesis concept when his son was born with a clubfoot. The treatment for that is to put casts on the foot every twoweeks to correct it. He and his family came to the United States in1991, and he worked in the prosthesis industry for Boston Brace,Nouvelle, and Swiss Orthopedic.He located his workshop – complete with workbench, drill press,routers, and other special tools – in an office complex because itneeded to be handicapped accessible. “We need to see patients here totake the measurements and to do adjustments, and we have parallel barsfor the patient to test the prosthesis.””We take casts of the part of the body, and from the cast we fabricatethe custom-made device. We measure, fabricate, and deliver,” saysMihov. Casts are generally made from plaster of paris.For a stump below the knee, making the prosthesis takes five to tenworking days, and its cost is predetermined by Medicare and thepatient’s need, he says. Some patients want to be able to run, othersonly to transfer from chair to chair. A below-the-knee prosthesis fora runner could cost from $7,000 to $10,000 versus $5,000 for aninvalid.Euro O&P LLC, 515 Executive Drive, Montgomery Commons, Princeton08540. Bodi Mihov, orthotist, prosthetist manager. 609-430-9020; fax,609-430-9070.Expansions: Alliance TechnologiesAlliance Technologies has moved to 4,500 square feet at PrincetonCorporate Plaza, 1 Deerpark Drive, Suite B, a space formerly occupiedby Sabinsa. Formerly it rented space in FMC’s building that fronts onRoute 1, but FMC plans to close that building, Chun says.Founders Jonathan Chun and Anatoly (Tony) Nemzer, had worked at FMC’sanalytical chemistry lab before opening their firm two years ago (U.S.1, July 3, 2002). “Considering the climate that we started in, rightafter 9/11, we have been growing 10 to 15 percent per year,” saysChun. They hired three permanent staffers and then added anotherperson last year for a total of six full-timers, plus two part-timersand a consultant.Nemzer had run the analytical group at FMC from 1997 to 2002, and Chunworked for him. But when one of the FMC divisions that used thisgroup’s service was traded away, and FMC was not enthusiastic aboutselling its analytical services to the outside world, Nemzer left FMCin September, 2001, to get the new firm organized. FMC allowed him touse his former space.The company can do real time testing during the manufacturing processfor product analysis or to achieve optimization. Sophisticatedcomputer data evaluation is offered to provide a statistical depictionof chemical processes. Among the customers have been FMC, Astaris,Church & Dwight, BetzDearborn, a water treatment firm, and a companythat makes sausage casings out of collagen.”We looked for space on College Road,” says Chun, “but that wasexpensive for us, so we came back to Harold Kent (owner of PrincetonCorporate Plaza.)Chun, 35, is a graduate of the University of Hawaii, Class of 1988,who left his home state for graduate school at Princeton University.He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton. Nemzer, 46, a Russian immigrant whosegraduated from the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. Hehas an master’s degree from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia.New clients are medical device firms to test plastic or materials.”Another surprising client base is with law firms in New York andWashington,” says Chun. “We do litigation support, testing a productfor an ingredient, or looking for patent infringement – dumping fromChina and India.”Alliance Technologies LLC), 1 Deer Park Drive, Princeton CorporatePlaza, Suite D, Monmouth Junction 08852-. Jonathan K.M. Chun PhD,principal, director of technology. 732-355-1234; fax, 732-438-8265.Home page: www.alliancetechgroup.comTop Of PageDigital 5 OverseasDigital 5, a Lawrenceville supplier of licensed consumer electronicsnetworking technology, has opened an engineering development office inIndia and regional sales and marketing offices in Japan and Taiwan.This overseas expansion is billed as a way for the company to serveits existing customers by locally supporting their technology andmarketing needs, and by promoting their services to potentialcustomers in the region.”The expansion in the Asian market is a result of steady, organicgrowth derived from increased business from our customer base,” saidMike Harris, president and COO. “The Asian market is critical toDigital 5 success, and is a natural extension of our acceleratingsuccess in the embedded software space.”Digital 5 Inc., 101 Grovers Mill Road, QuakerbridgeExecutive Center, Suite 200, Lawrenceville 08648. Gary Hughes, CEO.609-243-0015; fax, 609-243-9231. Home page: www.digital5.comTop Of PageClinical TrialsZargis Medical Corp., 755 College Road East, Princeton08540. Shahram Hejazi, president and CEO. 609-734-6510; fax,609-734-6565. Home page: www.zargis.comZargis reports that a clinical study has demonstrated its technologycan help forestall cases of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.Its computer-assisted heart sounds analysis algorithm identifiedpatients flagged by a cardiologist as having symptoms of obstructiveHCM, which is implicated in one-third of youths’ sudden cardiac death.Sometimes these symptoms are not easily detected by those who areconducting physical examinations.”There is a clear and immediate need for a cost effective screeningmethod that could help to identify young athletes at risk of suddencardiac death due to HCM,” says John Kallassy, managing director.Formed in January 2001 from the investments of Siemens CorporateResearch Inc. and Speedus Corp, Zargis develops advanced diagnosticdecision support products and services for primary care physicians,cardiologists and other healthcare professionals.Top Of PageDeathsDavid C. Oakley, 49, on October 8. He was vice president of IT systemsat Merrill Lynch.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
