BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ-Construction is just under way for a new 187,000-sf office building for cosmetics giant L'Oreal USA. The four-story building, rising on 16 acres within Connell Corporate Park, is slated for completion in 2009. Cost of the project hasn't been released.

When it's done, the new facility will consolidate some 300 employees currently working at five separate locations in New Jersey: Clark, Cranbury, Cranford, South Brunswick and Westfield. Another 100 or so employees will move over from L'Oreal USA's corporate headquarters in Manhattan, and company officials are terming the new building “L'Oreal USA's New Jersey headquarters.”

“It's a relocation, and it's an upgrading of our employees' environment,” says company SVP David Greenberg. The building will rise on a portion of the 170-acre Connell Corporate Park, a project of Connell Realty & Development Co. that has been under development since 1981 and has a projected build-out of nearly 1.8 million sf. The multi-building property currently has a building stock in the 1.4-million-sf range.