Project Marks 34-Year Build-out of Hartz's Harmon Cove

SECAUCUS, NJ-Hard on the heels of the groundbreaking for Lantis Eyewear’s massive warehouse facility in Harmon Cove (see earlier story), Corporate Express Office Products has signed a deal with developer/owner Hartz Mountain Industries for a 339,000-sf build-to-suit W/D facility on 18 acres. Beyond its size, the deal represents a momentous event: Those 18 acres constitute the last developable parcel in the 750-acre Harmon Cove tract, capping a development process that began 34 years ago.

Leonard Stern, founder of Hartz Mountain Industries and chairman of parent Hartz Group, bought the land in 1966 for $10 million in a deal widely viewed as folly. With its location adjacent major highways a few miles west of New York, Stern, however, saw the tract as a potential alternative to high-cost New York, and time has proven him right. From that raw land have emerged more than 13 million sf of W/D facilities and office space, 120 outlet stores, three hotels, 1,400 luxury condo apartments, plus townhouse condos in two side-by-side Hackensack River waterfront developments.

It also includes the Meadowlands Hospital and Panasonic’s U.S. headquarters. Other corporate names include Gucci, MSNBC, UPS, CBS, UPN-9, Datek Online and Children’s Place. The entire development remains in Hartz’s 35 million-sf portfolio.