2020 Acquisitions, an Edison, N.J.,-based real estate development and operating company, has secured a $654 million mortgage and mezzanine loan from Madison Realty Capital to refinance and complete a portion of Central 9 Logistics Park in Old Bridge, N.J. The note will be used to refinance five buildings in phase one of the 4.1 million-square-foot development and cover construction and leasing costs for two buildings in phase two.
NAMRECKA Capital’s Shaya Ackerman, Steven Treitel and Jacob Levy arranged the transaction.
The nine-building industrial campus is situated in Central New Jersey directly off Route 9 and positioned between key logistics arteries, including the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike and I-287. The location offers easy access to Port Newark, Port Elizabeth, Newark Liberty International Airport, New York City and Philadelphia.
Efrem Gerszberg, principal and president of 2020 Acquisitions, said in prepared remarks the firm signed three leases over the past 45 days totaling approximately 900,000 square feet, enabling the company to accelerate construction of phase two. The property has a 30-year PILOT agreement, ensuring tax expense stability for tenants. Construction will begin immediately.
Central 9 Logistics Park up close
2020 Acquisitions recently completed five buildings ranging in size from 192,000 square feet to 818,000 square feet in the first phase totaling about 2.1 million square feet. Second-stage buildings will have 139,000 and 809,000 square feet of space. Phase three will have the final two buildings. All the structures have 40-foot clear heights and some office space.
In October 2023, Paragon Packaging, a packaging and fulfillment company, signed a full-building lease for Building 2, a 192,100-square-foot warehouse located on 277.4 acres at 200 Fairway Lane, according to Yardi Matrix. The building has 28 dock-high doors, two grade-level doors and 97 parking spaces.
Building 4, a 271,348-square-foot warehouse at 600 Fairway Lane, was fully leased by Discovery SCM, a third-party logistics company, in October 2024, the same source shows. Located on 186.6 acres, it has 34 dock-high doors, two grade-level doors and 140 parking spaces.
Cushman & Wakefield is handling leasing for the industrial campus.
More property highlights
Yardi Matrix data on four completed properties and one Phase 2 asset—Buildings 1 through 5—showed they had construction loans totaling $542.8 million that originated in October 2024 by Corebridge Financial.
Building 3, an 818,395-square-foot asset at 400 Fairway Lane, was the largest of the buildings completed during the first phase. Situated on 180.6 acres, the building has 125 dock-high doors, four grade-level doors and 359 parking spaces. The 277,528-square-foot Building 5 at 800 Fairway Lane sits on 180.6 acres. It has 32 dock-high doors, two grade-level doors and 134 parking spaces.
Building 1, a 808,510-square-foot property at 201 Jake Brown Road, is planned to come online in the second phase. The building will have 131 dock-high doors, four grade-level doors and 424 parking spaces.
Supply-constrained market
Located in the Cranbury submarket in Central New Jersey, Central 9 Logistics Park is within a supply-constrained market where the delivery of more warehouse space, including one with more than 800,000 square feet, will be welcomed. Driven by e-commerce and 3PL demand, Central New Jersey is one of the country’s most competitive industrial markets. This activity mirrors national industrial real estate trends characterized by strong tenant demand and limited new supply.
In its third-quarter report, Cushman & Wakefield noted that the New Jersey industrial market rebounded after four consecutive quarters of occupancy losses, with 4.8 million square feet of positive net absorption. Leasing activity gained momentum as the second half of the year began, as many tenants who had previously delayed decisions due to tariff-related uncertainty around consumer demand began to move forward. Most of the demand was concentrated in Central New Jersey, which accounted for 3.7 million square feet of occupancy gains during the quarter.
With a reduced pipeline of speculative projects and an increasing share of pre-leased developments, occupancy gains are expected to continue into the fourth quarter, Cushman & Wakefield notes.