Corrections or additions?
These articles were prepared by Barbara Fox for the April 27, 2005
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Life in the Fast Lane
Whatever happened to that “glass house” at 1315 Canal Road that at one
time was on the market for $18 million and failed to sell at auction
for $3 million?
It did get sold, six months after the auction, in October, 2003, for
$2.5 million.
To recap: In 2001 John and Prudence Morgan Boulton had put the house,
called Chalan Farm, on the market for $18 million, then reduced it to
$12 million. Boulton declined to say what it cost to build the house
he had designed himself. The house is 425 feet long, with
floor-to-ceiling octagonal glass pavilions that offer a 360-degree
view to the outside. With 17,000 square feet on the glass-walled
ground floor, and the same amount of space in the basement, the house,
at sale time, had just four bedrooms and four baths. It also had
14-foot ceilings, an indoor pool, a Jacuzzi, an eight-car garage, a
4,000 gallon liquid gas storage system, a $1.5 million HVAC system, a
25-line telephone feed, recording studio, wine cellar, gym, and row
upon row of industrial shelving.
When the house first went on the market, interviews with contractors
revealed that the very exacting homeowner had disputed some of their
charges (U.S. 1, December 12, 2001).
After the house did not sell for $12 million, the Boultons hired
Alabama-based J.P. King Auction Company to sell it in spring, 2003
(U.S. 1, April 23, 2003).
Some of the disputes with contractors apparently escalated. At the
time of the auction, caveats on the auctioneer’s web page disclosed
litigation regarding the curtain wall and cement floor installations.
At least one contractor is still in litigation with the Boultons.
The new owners are Mr. and Mrs. Gunther Bright of Manhattan. Bright,
an executive with American Express Global Corporate Services, has said
he would prefer to leave his plans for the unusual property
“unspecified.”
The Boultons, who said they were selling the house to move to New York
City, have turned up in Marietta, Ohio, where they bought a
four-bedroom house for less than $286,000.
Every accountant knows that internal theft – products going out the
door in the pockets of an employee – can wreak havoc with a company’s
profit margin. Victory Packaging, on Corn Road in Dayton, successfully
faced and conquered that threat, with the result that it was able to
clean house and have two employees arrested by South Brunswick
Township police.
It was a textbook example, says Detective James Ryan, of how a company
can make an open-and-shut case to prove internal theft. “The company
realized that it had product loss last year,” says Ryan. “They were
not able to specify the loss because of record keeping issues. At one
point in time $20,000 of tape was missing. So they changed management
and made internal changes.”
One evening Victory’s security staff audited the contents of the all
the trucks and found that one truck had more products than it was
scheduled to have. When the truck left the dock on March 22, it was
tailed by a security team with a video camera.
“The drivers were having someone load extra packaging material and
adding extra loads onto their trucks,” says Ryan. “Some of the normal
customers they were delivering to were paying paid cash on the side.
Customer loyalty had been deeply eroded.”
“Company officials told us mid-day that they were trying to confirm
their suspicions,” says Ryan. “When the driver stopped at a location
that wasn’t on the list, they alerted us. We stopped the truck when it
came back to South Brunswick. Before he knew what we were looking for,
the driver denied he had many of those stops, and then we produced the
video tapes.”
The two arrested employees, according to a report in the South
Brunswick Sentinel, were Miguel Tejada, 34, and Sergio Gomez, 39.
Gomez was allegedly the worker who loaded merchandise onto Tejada’s
delivery truck. They were charged with the theft of about $10,000 in
merchandise, and they posted bail.
In this case, says Ryan, “the bulk of the work had been done by the
company. We have cases all the time where the documentation isn’t
sufficient to prove a criminal charge.”
Victory Packaging, 8 Corn Road, Dayton 08810.732-274-1745. Michael O’Malley, manager.Top Of PageJDS DownsizesOn April 20 JDS Uniphase, a manufacturer of optoelectronic devices forfiber optic communications networks, announced it will reduce itsmanufacturing jobs by more than 15 percent. The R&D jobs will stay inEwing, but the manufacturing jobs will disappear.Some jobs in Ewing will be combined with those in Melbourne, Florida,and go to Shenzhen, China. This will take place by the end of theyear. Additional manufacturing jobs in Ewing and Mountain Lakes willbe transferred to Thailand-based Fabrinet, JDS Uniphase’smanufacturing partner, by the end of June.”These initiatives are part of a multi-quarter business transformationstrategy for JDS Uniphase to achieve profitability by reducing coststructure and improving corporate agility,” said CEO Kevin Kennedy ina press release. “We firmly believe that our ability to restructuremajor operations and rationalize our current portfolio, whileinvesting in next-generation products, positions JDS Uniphase forsuccess and differentiates us from the competition.”JDSU also has manufacturing sites in Ottawa and Santa Rosa and SanJose, California. As of April 4, there were 350 jobs on Ludlow Drive.JDS Uniphase (JDSU), 200 Ludlow Drive, EwingvilleBusiness Park, Ewing 08638. 609-538-1800; fax, 609-538-8122. Homepage: www.jdsu.comTop Of PageReal Estate MovesNAI Fennelly Inc., 3535 Quakerbridge Road, Ibis Plaza,Suite 102, Hamilton 08619-1209. Gerard J. Fennelly, president.609-520-0061; fax, 609-631-9208. Home page: www.fennelly.comPlainsboro is getting a new mixed-use lifestyle community, PlainsboroVillage Center, and Jerry Fennelly of NAI Fennelly is in charge ofleasing the office component for the builder, Sharbell DevelopmentCorp.It will be located on Scudders Mill Road, across Schalks Crossing Roadfrom an existing shopping center, Plainsboro Plaza. In addition to a”village square” with a total of 48,000 square feet and a mix ofresidential homes, there will be nearly 55,000 square feet of officespace. The first building will have 5,750 feet of office space and7,250 feet of retail space.”Steel is in the air,” says Fennelly. “It’s not often that you find aproperty with the convenience of office/retail space and yet withhousing just a stone’s throw away.” The first building is expected tobe finished by September.Housing was the component that was missing from Princeton ForrestalVillage in 1987. Theoretically, homeowners from Princeton Landing weregoing to take advantage of the retail and office environment ofForrestal Village, but a road was never cut through, and the residentshad to get in their cars and drive to PFV.The Plainsboro Village Center may be more effectively compared to thesuccessful Washington Town Center. “We’re seeing a growing demand byusers who want the convenience of leaving their office or home andbeing able to walk to pick up coffee, dinner, or dry cleaning withjust a few short steps,” says Tom Troy, senior vice president ofSharbell.The quintessential combo of housing, office, and retail is of course,Palmer Square. But Plainsboro presumably won’t have parking problems.Melendez Realty Services LLC, 1369 South Broad Street,Trenton 08611. Carmen Melendez. 609-392-2900; fax, 609-396-0721.Carmen N. Natal-Melendez is expanding her real estate company byopening a second Trenton office, across from City Hall, at 320 EastState Street. Her focus is to train low and moderate income familiesfor homeownership opportunities in the city.”One of our main goals,” says Melendez in a press release, “is toeducate families – whether they work, visit, or are touring thedowntown area – to show them the many homeownership opportunities inthe City of Trenton.”The company closed more than $43 million in sales volume since it wasfounded less than a year ago, and agents have trained more than 250families.Patrinely Group, 150 College Road West, Suite 150,Princeton 08540. Phillip Benjamin, 609-514-1799; fax, 609-514-1791.Home page: www.patrinely.comThe sale of 100 and 150 College Road West closed in late March,according to the online trade publication GlobeSt.com. The PatrinelyGroup developed the two buildings, along with an investment fund, andsold it to New Valley Corporation, based in Miami, for $54 million in2003. Two years later, New Valley has turned it around to sell it for$71.5 million, according to GlobeSt, which quoted a “source withknowledge of the transaction” as saying that the buyer is aSwiss-based investment group.The 225,700-foot complex is the North American headquarters of NovoNordisk, and another major tenant is American Re. Included are afull-service cafeteria, a fitness center, and nine parking spaces.Top Of PageExpansionsAccelera Corporation, 240 Princeton Avenue, Suite 176,American Metro Center, Hamilton 08619. Ian Kelly, managing director ofsales and marketing. 609-221-2988; fax, 609-912-0607. Home page:www.accelera.comAt the end of this month Accelera Corporation will expand my moving a35-person office from 3131 Princeton Pike to 10,750 square feet at theAmerican Metro Center.Founded in 1981, Accelera develops custom content for thelife-sciences industry to accelerate the global adoption of advancedmedical products. It has content creation products for sales training,product launches, virtual preceptorships, casebased learning,marketing communications, continuing medical education, medical videoproduction.Accelera Corporation bought Kenexa’s Learning Solutions Group in 2004,and the company in Princeton has also been known as Raymond KarsanAssociates. Accelera is a licensee of Johns Hopkins University.Kim Theobald, manager of corporate services, is the human resourcescontact and Tony Zorc, controller, is in charge of purchasing.Top Of PageLeaving TownMinarik Automation and Control, 85 Robert Porter Road,Southington CT 06489. 800-486-2190; fax, 860-621-9376. Home page:www.minarikcorp.comThe four-person distribution center for a manufacturer of motioncontrol equipment has closed on North Center in North Brunswick. Salesare being handled in Connecticut.The firm primarily makes DC controls, but also manufactures a line ofcompatible products which includes positioning tables, motors,controls, brakes, clutches, sensors, relays, and robots. Thefamily-owned firm is headquartered in Glendale, California.Top Of PageDeathsThomas Gibney, 57, on April 9, of ocular melanoma. He was a computerprogrammer at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.Benjamin B. Tregoe Jr., 77, on April 20. He was co-founder andchairman emeritus of Kepner-Tregoe Inc., an international managementconsulting firm on Research Road.Paul R. Foley on April 21. A 1954 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy,he retired in 2003 from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.Thomas S. Madiara 20, on April 24. He was the Internet manager forAudi of Princeton.Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
