The sole broker on the deal was Thomas P. Consiglio, principal at Resource Realty in Parsippany. He tells GlobeSt.com that the deal was necessitated by the retailer's recent decision to move its e-commerce business to its Southeast distribution center in Ft. Payne, AL, where the company has a 690,000-square-foot warehouse. Also prompting the reconfiguration was its divestiture last year of the Disney Store chain, which it had acquired back in 2004. With the move to Alabama and the break-up of the Disney deal, the retailer found itself with excess space, Consiglio says.

Back in 2006, Children's Place had leased more than 245,000 square feet at Two Emerson Ln. here, Consiglio says. He also says that company occupies 203,000 square feet of office and warehouse space at 915 Secaucus Rd and 31,000 square feet at One Meadowlands Plaza. Except for One Meadowlands Plaza, all buildings are owned by Hartz Mountain Industries. Those leases--which had very little term left--at Two Emerson Rd. and 915 Secaucus Rd., according to Consiglio, have been terminated.

"Hartz Mountain is probably one of the very few landlords that has the ability to structure that kind of deal with their tenant," Consiglio says. "Most landlords are tied to their lenders and wouldn't have the ability to take back a lease in this environment and that was really the key to the deal so that Children's Place could right-size."