The MetLife property is adjacent to Bayer Healthcare's East Coast headquarters. The Vision Real Estate Partners/Rubenstein team sold 94 acres of the 67 Whippany site to Bayer in 2012, and subsequently redeveloped and expanded an existing building to create the pharmaceutical firm's new 675,000-square-foot, LEED-certified facility there. Earlier this year, Bayer purchased an additional 86 acres of adjacent land.

Today, with nearly 1.1 million square feet in developed and approved space for MetLife and Bayer, the project has effectively replaced the obsolete Alcatel-Lucent offices. “Our goal from the outset was to set a new standard for improving functionally obsolete and underutilized, infill office real estate to institutional grade product,” says Ross Chomik, Vision Real Estate Partners' managing partner.

“Throughout the process we have worked alongside first-class municipal, investment and service partners, and – of course – blue chip tenants,” he says. “The outcome at 67 Whippany Road validates the premise that if developers can acquire real estate at a basis that enables the investment required to redevelop it in a first-class manner – they can create next-generation assets focused on sustainability and quality of life. Everybody wins – the developer, the tenant(s) and the municipality.”

The redevelopment of 67 Whippany was transformational for the site. Five years ago, a drive past the site would have shown low-rise concrete buildings with little obvious appeal apart from location. Today there are two flagship corporate properties that improve the look and feel of the surrounding area and add value to the local community.

“We believe that this transaction demonstrates the continuing appeal of high demographic suburban areas to major corporate tenants when the right product is made available to them,” says Eric Schiela, managing principal and chief operating officer of Rubenstein Partners. “We bought this obsolete asset in a solid, infill location and, along with our partner and tenants, and the cooperation and support of the township, methodically undertook the hard work of transforming it into a modern, class A environment. We are pleased to bring this complex investment to a successful conclusion that contributes best quality space to Hanover Township and the Morris County office market.”

A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Robert Donnelly, Rob Donnelly, Jr. and Marc Rosenberg has represented the ownership throughout the entire process and has been instrumental in each transaction. The commercial real estate services firm's Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group – headed by Andrew Merin, David Bernhaut, Gary Gabriel and Brian Whitmer – also were involved in leading the Salus Government Properties and Bayer sales. In 2015, a Cushman & Wakefield – Equity, Debt & Structured Finance team of John Alascio, Alex Hernandez and John Spreitzer, advised Vision Real Estate Partners and Rubenstein Partners in arranging a $54 million construction loan for the development of the office complex.

Vision Real Estate Partners', Rubenstein's and Cushman & Wakefield's achievements have been recognized with awards from NAIOP New Jersey, NJBIA, the Morris County Economic Development Corporation, United Way of Northern New Jersey and the US Green Building Council New Jersey.