PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Hana Asset Management Co., a Korean investor, has purchased a 762,000-square-foot office campus in New Jersey for $305 million. The Class A campus is located in Plainsboro, approximately midway between Philadelphia and New York City and nearby to Princeton University.
The 58-acre property was originally built for Merrill Lynch in 1985. Novo Nordisk currently occupies 563,000 square feet of the campus, with expansion rights through April 2031, no termination rights and a 10-year renewal option. The pharmaceutical company has occupied the campus since 2013, when the property underwent a full redevelopment.
The acquisition marks the largest single-asset sale in New Jersey so far in 2016, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group, which represented the seller. The firm’s Andrew Merin, David Bernhaut, Gary Gabriel and Brian Whitmer executed the transaction on behalf of a partnership between Ivy Equities, LCOR Inc. and Intercontinental Real Estate Corp.
Ken Lorman of Lee & Associates represented the buyer. John Alascio, Alexander Hernandez and Alex Lapidus of Cushman & Wakefield Equity, Debt & Structured Finance’s team arranged acquisition financing and future funding for Novo Nordisk’s planned expansion at the campus.
The campus is situated in the Princeton Forrestal Center Office and Research Park, where Novo Nordisk has maintained a presence since 1999.
— Nellie Day