Primedia Changes And Sells Building
From Victor Company to Just Victor
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were prepared for the July 25, 2001
edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Real Estate News
The Buchanan Ingersoll law firm plans to move out of
20,000 square feet at 650 College Road and into the new building,
700 Alexander Park, by the end of September. Meanwhile the Hale and
Dorr law firm has moved into 42,000 square feet on the third floor
of 650 College Road and, because it holds the lease for both spaces,
it is in charge of leasing the BI quarters.
Until some of the BI attorneys left to set up the first Princeton
office of Hale and Dorr, all of this space had been occupied by
Buchanan
Ingersoll. The Hale and Dorr people occupied temporary space at the
Carnegie Center and then moved back where they were before.
Hale and Dorr, based in Boston, worked out a deal so that it holds
the lease on all the space. Now Milt Charbonneau and Brian McMamimon
of Colliers Houston are in charge of the sublease. In addition to
the elegantly appointed finished space, Colliers Houston is also
marketing
6,000 square feet of raw unfinished space on the third floor. Jerry
Fennelly of NAI Fennelly is representing BI.
Based in Pittsburgh, BI is 150 years old and last year was ranked
65th in size nationally. Ivan Punchatz (Gettysburg College, Class
of 1971, and Seton Hall) is the partner-in-charge. He prosecuted
Medicaid
cases as the former state deputy attorney general and now heads the
healthcare practice.
BI also recently added a bankruptcy and creditors practice, led by
Louis T. DeLucia and Alan J. Brody, to the Princeton office. The
office
also has these practice areas: banking and finance including Uniform
Commercial Code litigation, commercial transactions, labor law, and
technology law.
“We continue to have a very significant office in Princeton and
to develop the growth of our legal work throughout New Jersey,”
says William R. Newlin, president and CEO of Buchanan Ingersoll.
Newlin
graduated from Princeton University in 1962, and has a law degree
from the University of Pittsburgh. In the 20 years that he has headed
this law firm, it has grown from 78 to more than 400 attorneys and
from 3 to 15 offices, and it is now one of the largest and “most
steadily growing” law firms in the United States.
“Our Princeton office fits in extremely well, particularly when
you consider that we have very important Philadelphia and New York
offices,” says Newlin. “By the end of the year we will
finalize
the plan for the office, but it will clearly contemplate significant
growth as we move into next year.”
Buchanan Ingersoll Professional Corporation, 650College Road East, Princeton 08540. Ivan Punchatz, partner-in-charge.609-987-6800; fax, 609-520-0360. Www.bipc.comHale and Dorr LLP, 650 College Road East, Princeton08540. David J. Sorin, partner in charge. 609-750-7600; fax,609-750-7700.Top Of PagePrimedia Changes And Sells BuildingPrimedia Inc, a company with roots in the horse racingbusiness, has sold one of its Princeton-based companies, acquiredanother company, sold its Lake Drive building, and drasticallyreorganizedits new media group. Headquartered in New York, Primedia sold its64,000-foot enclave at 10 Lake Drive in East Windsor in June to NeilLaboratories, a drug maker that already has a 30,000 square-footbuildingat 55 Lake Drive.A glimpse at the Primedia bloodlines: The race track bible, the DailyRacing Form, used to be headquartered in Hightstown and owned by theAnnenbergs. It was sold to Rupert Murdoch’s organization, then toK-III Directory Corporation, and K-III changed its name to Primedia.Primedia sold the Daily Racing Form in 1998 and then sold PrimediaInformation, a directory company, last fall.The resulting new company, Commonwealth Business Media, has movedto Windsor Corporate Park, the former Lockheed Martin plant onMillstoneRoad. Among its databases and directory publications are those fortransportation, rail, shipping, and classical music. Alan Glass, thechairman of Commonwealth Business Media, had been the chief operatingofficer at Primedia Information.Commonwealth Business Media, 50 Millstone Road,Windsor Corporate Park, Cranbury 08512. Alan Glass, CEO. 609-371-7700;fax, 609-371-7879. Home page: www.cbizmedia.comTop Of PageIndustry ClickAnother entity of Primedia’s, IndustryClick, has alsomoved out of Lake Drive into leased space, 20,000 square feet atPrincetonForrestal Village. Led by Tim Andrews, formerly of Dow Jones, it isa business-to-business Internet operation with vertical onlinecommunitiesserving niche industries. Andrews had said he planned to staff upto 200 people here, but at least 20 jobs have been lost as a resultof reorganization caused by the acquisition of Manhattan-basedAbout.Inc,which owns special interest websites.Primedia aimed to reduce expenses this year by $49 million as a resultof this merger. To the question of how many people actually work inForrestal Village, a spokesperson, Karen Garrison, Kansas-baseddirectorof corporate communications, says that there is “no clear crispanswer.”After the reorganization, IndustryClick is known as Primedia’s NewMedia Division and is part of Intertec, the Kansas City-basedtechnicaland trade publication and exhibitions company, says Garrison. Andrews,who was not available for an interview, still reports to David Ferm,president and CEO of Primedia’s business to business group, but hisgroup is now called the New Media Division.Primedia bills itself as a targeted media company with sales of 1.7billion in 2000; it owns more than 230 magazines, including New York,Seventeen, American Demographics, American Baby, and Fly Fisherman.With Intertec Publishing it has 100 publications, more than 30 tradeshows, and 450 books and directories. With the acquisition ofAbout.comit gained more than 1,000 special interest websites. In the educationarea it owns Channel One, an educational channel for schools, as wellas the 65-person Films for the Humanities & Sciences on Perrine Road.”Some people, because of the merger, are now working in New YorkCity,” says Garrison. “We have been busy for 115 years andcontinue to be busy today. All companies evolve as times change andas businesses change.”Primedia sold its 64,000-foot building at 10 Lake Drive to NeilLaboratoriesin June for $2.75 million or about $42 per square foot. Doug Twymanrepresented both owner and buyer through Newmark JGT and GVA Williams,and Chris Helgesan of GVA Williams was also involved. For a TwinRiverscommercial property, which has mostly warehouses, this property hasan unusual amount of finished office space — about 65 percent.The 64,000-foot building is situated on 20 acres.IndustryClick (PRM), 155 Village Boulevard,Princeton08540. Timothy Andrews. 609-571-4500. Www.industryclick.comAnother Primedia organization with a Princeton addresshas expanded. This spring Films for the Humanities and Sciencesacquiredan educational materials firm in West Virginia, Cambridge Technology,and staffed up from about 45 people in the winter to more than 100people now. Owned by Primedia, Films for the Humanities and Scienceshas among its collections the science films of the WGBH collection,Nova, and TV Ontario. The clients are schools, universities, healthcare institutions, and business.Films for the Humanities and Sciences (PRM), 11Perrine Road, Monmouth Junction, Box 2053, Princeton 08543-2053. BetsySherer, CEO. 609-275-1400; fax, 609-275-3767. Www.films.comTop Of PageSarnoff Spinoff Goes PublicA north Jersey-based Sarnoff spinoff, e-vue, will gopublic by doing a reverse buyout. A small dotcom company is”buying”E-vue by issuing from 10 to 13 million shares of stock, effectivelytripling its stock outstanding. The stock will be worth from $7.1to $9.2 million, but E-vue will control the firm. The dotcom,clickNsettle.com,is based in Great Neck, New York, and it has a website that helpsdecide legal disputes. The agreement is expected to go through byLabor Day.E-vue takes advantage of Sarnoff’s many interactive multimediapatents,and it aims to be the leading branded technology leader in streamrich media for the mass market. It develops, markets, and distributesMPEG-4 compliant technologies for speedy network delivery and displayof still images and video with only low bandwidth.”E-Vue has taken the lead in the MPEG-4 market, and they havedone a tremendous job bringing MPEG-4 to the masses,” says EdHansch, marketing vice president. “As a result of this imagingingenuity, more people will have enjoyable — and faster —Web experiences.” One feature of e-vue’s software: progressivedownloading and display of still images, so viewers first see thewhole picture in a smaller size or at low resolution, but then seeit build to full quality and size.In late 1999 e-vue was Sarnoff’s 14th spin-off. Its president, KennethSun went to school in China at Nan Jing University, Class of 1983,and earned his PhD in physics at State University of New York atBuffalo.He did computational protein chemistry and drug design forpharmaceuticalcompanies until 1994 when he turned to the venture capital side ofthe business and joined Global China Investments, a joint venturebetween a Canadian government pension fund and a Hong Kong investmentfund. Then he worked with Princeton-based venture capitalist, RobertJohnston, at Johnston Associates on Cherry Valley Road.Seed stage investors include the Tisch family, John Levin, and CharlesXue, a high-tech entrepreneur (U.S. 1, October 27, 1999). Xue(pronounced”shoo”), 46, went to the Chinese Academy in China and hasa graduate degree from Berkeley. With Peter Wang he founded aUTStarCom,a Lucent-like company based in China that had offices in Iselin andSan Francisco. Xue is board chairman.e-vue, 33 Wood Avenue South, Eighth Floor, Iselin08830. Kenneth Sun, president. 732-590-0102; fax, 732-452-9726. Homepage: www.e-vue.comTop Of PageFrom Victor Company to Just VictorVictor Murray says his watershed moment came when hewas 17 years old and had to choose whether to move with his familyto Niagara Falls or stay with his grandparents in Pittsburgh to finishhis senior year in high school. Lots of people raised eyebrows overhis decision to move. But as Murray now says, “I realized youhave to step out of your comfort zone. My thought was, I’d best learnhow to get out and meet new people. That was probably a definingmomentfor me.”Every three to five years, he believes, “it’s good to do whatyou do a little differently.” His most recent change in directionis closing the commercial real estate firm that he and his wife,Lynne,ran for 14 years. This also drew criticism. “A lot of people thinkwe have lived the American dream and that we have given up ourfreedom,”says Murray. “But it was time to do something different.”After shutting the doors at the Victor Group office on Alexander Road,Murray is working for the Aegis Group, which has offices inPhiladelphiaand Trenton.Through Aegis, he still works with his former clients, doing tenantrepresentation or as a consultant, but he is also responsible forleasing 900,000 feet in Camden, Trenton, and Princeton, includingArbor 600 on College Road, and 650 and 750 College Road, plus theAegis properties in Trenton — State Street Square and 28 WestState Street.Victor Murray is an avid collector of mottos, and 18 years ago, whenhis wife was pregnant with the son who is now a high school senior,he made a plaque for the boy: “Life is an adventure to be lived,not a problem to be solved.”Murray says his adventurous spirit came from his father, who developedhigh rises in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, including 1600 Market(which,ironically, is the current address of Aegis). “He used to takethe blueprints home, and the ones he didn’t need he would give usto crayon on. I was the one of the three brothers who asked, `What’son the other side?’”After graduating from Penn State in 1976, Murray met his wife atProvidentBank. It was an era when “fraternizing,” dating or evenmarryingwithin the bank, was frowned upon. “We still have the lettersayingit was OK to get married and that we could keep our jobs,” hesays.Murray joined Oliver Realty in Pittsburgh, an employee-owned companythat he helped to grow from 30 to 200 people. The Aegis Group remindshim of those halcyon days, he says. In 1983 he made another seeminglyunlikely decision: To move to Princeton to represent the Enerplexbuildings, two Prudential properties on Research Way that were hardto rent at that time because they used alternative energy sources.”People asked, why would you move your family to handle buildingsthat were struggling?” he remembers, and quotes another one motto,this one referencing the slag fires of the Pittsburgh steel mills:The strongest deals are always forged from the hottest fires. “Butsoon we had GE and Dow Jones in the buildings, and that kicked itoff. Prudential gave us the other seven buildings.”Fourteen years ago, a year after Oliver was bought by Grubb & Ellis,Victor and his wife, Lynne, started their own company. They had”nextto nothing, very little capital,” but that helped them makesmarterbusiness decisions, he believes, than did companies with capital tosquander. “We had good years and bad years and great years andso so years, but when your wife works with you, and she knows whatthe books are, you can plan your lifestyle conservatively.””People say that two people on their own can’t make it, but weproved that isn’t necessarily true,” says Murray, quoting theaxiom promulgated by the Disney managers, that “doing theimpossibleis kind of fun.””I chose to do some of the larger ones and that was a risk, Idon’t deny that. We closed only a few deals a year.” His largestsingle lease was 400,000 feet for ETS at the Carnegie Center.Now Murray is busy leasing Arbor 600, the 247,000 square foot CollegeRoad building that was at one time Princeton’s “largest specbuilding”(“on spec” meaning that the tenants have not been signed whenconstruction starts).He thinks this market will be good for Trenton, where Aegis has someof its prize properties. “It is a great city and a greatopportunity.”Using Merrill Lynch as an example, he commends that company forspreadingits offices through various submarkets, so that as it funnels peopleinto its new development near Hopewell, no one market is hit hard.”That was very thoughtful. But can you imagine what would it wouldhave meant to the future of the city, if Merrill Lynch had built itsnew complex in Trenton?”The Victor Company , 791 Alexander Road, Princeton08540. Victor Murray, president.Aegis Property Group Limited, 50 West State Street,Suite 112, Trenton 08608. James A. Kinzig, partner. 609-393-8457;fax, 609-599-1782. Home page: www.aegispg.com.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
