Matrix Repositions, Sells Properties Totaling Over 730,000 SF

CRANBURY, NJ-”Our aim was to create value in these three assets, to redevelop and re-lease them, and reposition them through our asset management efforts. We decided that the time was right to realize that value by selling the properties.” That’s how Donald Epstein, executive vice president of Matrix Development Group, based here, describes the process in which his company bought three underperforming office properties just two years ago, gave them a good working over, then sold them. The properties total over 730,000 sf, and the deal comes in a market where almost no one sells such properties without making a nice, tidy sum. The buyer is a consortium of real estate investors based in Brooklyn, NY; the sale price was not disclosed.

The largest of the three properties is 3 Executive Park, a 436,000-sf facility in Cherry Hill, NJ located just east of Camden. Next is the Business Center at Colwick, a three-building complex totaling just under 170,000 sf, also in Cherry Hill. The last is the 127,000-sf 6000 Atrium Way in Mt. Laurel, NJ. Cushman & Wakefield brokers Jim Vesey and Michael Hines of the Philadelphia office, and Andy Merin and Gary Gabriel of the New Jersey office, handled the negotiations.

All three properties are located in South Jersey, and the obvious question is whether Matrix is withdrawing from that part of the state in favor of the Central and Northern portions. “We are still committed to Southern New Jersey,” responds Epstein. He points to the fact that his company still owns class A properties at Strawbridge Corporate Center in Moorestown, and the Riverview Corporate Center in Cherry Hill.

Also, Matrix is still in the process of turning around Bishops Gate Corporate Center in Mt. Laurel, buying an additional 138 acres there called the Bishops Gate South Campus. Existing facilities at Bishops Gate feature such tenants as Okidata’s US headquarters, Cendant Mortgage and NFL Films. The South Campus parcel is zoned to accommodate up to one million sf of office development.