No sooner had the Edison office of Cushman & Wakefield begun trying to sell the former Novo Nordisk headquarters at 100 College Road West, than its work was done. The three-story, 154,101-square-foot building, on the southbound side of Route 1 below Forrrestal Village, has sold for $63.5 million, a benchmark price for the market.
“This transaction occurred before the availability was formally announced,” said Andrew Merin of Cushman & Wakefield.
Real estate broker Jerry Fennelly, of NAI Fennelly group, estimated the owners, Montvale-based Ivy Realty, made more than $27 million on the deal, having bought the building for around $200 a square foot in March, and sold it for more than $400 a square foot to a subsidiary of American Capital.
“That’s a home run,” Fennelly said. “Real estate is back. It’s happening, and money’s flowing.” Fennelly said he believes low interest rates and an open money market are spurring investment.
Another factor is that Sandoz, the pharmaceutical company currently at the Carnegie Center, had recently signed a 12-year lease for the building. Fennelly said long-term leases by blue chip companies like Sandoz always command high prices.
“The Princeton/Route 1 submarket’s vacancy rate, 12.7 percent, is the lowest in the state,” said Merin, who added that “there are no blocks of contiguous space greater than 100,000 square feet currently available.”
