One of the larger new industrial parks in Morris County is about to open for business in one of its smallest towns.
The Lincoln Equities Group on Tuesday announced the "unveiling" of Lincoln Logistics Morris Plains, comprised of nearly 500,000 square feet of space divided between two warehouses off Tabor Road (Route 53).
The project, more than a decade in the making, replaces a business campus that was once part of Big Pharma's sizeable corporate presence in the county. The buildings demolished there were most recently owned by Johnson & Johnson, and before that by Pfizer and Warner-Lambert, part of a history that dates back to the 1950s.
"It's been quite a while and we're excited to welcome them to the community," said Morris Plains Mayor Jason Karr.
Representatives of Lincoln Equities, a developer based in East Rutherford, could not be reached on Wednesday. Karr was unaware whether any leases had been signed for the property to date, but he said construction was complete and "they received their certificate of occupancy."
Inside Lincoln Logistics Morris Plains
The two rectangular buildings now dominate the stretch of Route 53 connecting Route 10 to Speedwell Avenue and downtown Morris Plains. The 66-acre parcel also includes a newer office building, built in 2006, at 185 Tabor Road.
PCCP LLC and Vision Real Estate Partners acquired the properties in 2018 for an undisclosed sum. Plans that year to build a fragrance factory at the location were abandoned after fierce opposition from the public flooded planning board meetings with protesting crowds.
The new park includes two facilities, one covering about 225,000 square feet and the other 270,000. Each building features 40-foot clear ceiling heights, two drive-in doors, 35 dock doors (facing each other) and parking for cars and trailers.
“Our vision was to deliver a state-of-the-art industrial park that will set a new standard for design, efficiency and connectivity in the region,” Lincoln Equities CEO Lance Bergstein said in the announcement. "With its strategic location and best-in-class infrastructure, this project is well positioned to support the evolving needs of a wide range of users across e-commerce, manufacturing and logistics.”
Too much warehouse space?
The Morris Plains site is opening after a boom in warehouse building in New Jersey and amid signs the need for such space may have already peaked., at least for now
The share of unused capacity in Garden State warehouses reached its highest level in more than a decade last year, thanks to a surge in construction combined with economic uncertainty over the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs. After a pickup in online shopping, demand for shipping and storage has also slipped back toward pre-COVID levels, experts said.
The real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield said in an early January report that the warehouse vacancy rate in northern and central New Jersey at the end of last year was 9%, the highest since the first quarter of 2013.
The firm noted a “surge in new supply” of 13.1 million square feet of “mostly vacant" warehouse space.
But Thomas Monahan of CBRE, the exclusive leasing agent for Lincoln Logistics Morris Plains, said in the announcement: "We're seeing significant demand for modern, scalable industrial space in the Tri-state area.
“With its exceptional power capabilities, superior design and proximity to key transportation routes, this development checks all the boxes for top-tier industrial users," Monahan said.
Development in Morris County
Three more warehouses are approved in neighboring Parsippany and more warehouse projects are in progress throughout Morris County, including a 585,000 square foot facility replacing the former BASF headquarters building along Route 80 in Mount Olive. The same developer is building another 200,000-square-foot warehouse nearby.
Still, applications for warehouse space also fell significantly in Morris County last year 2024, according to a report by the county Planning Department in April. It was the second straight yearly decline for warehouse proposals, county planners found.
Warehouse projects peaked in 2022, including an application to build 2.5 million square feet on the site of the former Hercules munitions plant in Roxbury, according to the county. That plan was withdrawn after more than a year of presentations to the Roxbury Planning Board did not generate the rezoning approvals needed.
Overall, warehouse applications thinned from just over 2 million square feet in 2023 to about 726,000 last year, according to the county report.