Commercial buildings aim to attract millennial tenants

With New Jersey’s office vacancy rate hovering at around 24 percent, retaining and attracting tenants is top of mind for today’s commercial property owners.

Re-positioning decades-old buildings to meet tenants’ evolving needs and support a new generation of office worker is more important than ever, according to a panel of industry experts at the Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal’s NJ Commercial Real Estate Forecast Summit.

The panel, “Office Market Evaluation & Today’s Tenant Requirements,” was moderated by Dennis W. McConnell, executive vice-president of JLL. Panelists included Paul Newman, partner and vice-president of Kimmerle Newman Architects; Richard Mirliss, executive managing director of Colliers International, and Kristine Hurlbut, senior vice-president of leasing at Denholtz Associates.

The event at the APA Hotel in Iselin, brought together more than 100 of the region’s top commercial real estate professionals, along with five panels of industry leaders representing the retail, mixed use, office, multifamily and industrial markets.

Today’s suburban office buildings – many of which were built in the 1980s — are in a state of transition, the panelists agreed. These assets are being reinvented with sophisticated amenities to bring a downtown urban feel — where everything is at a tenant’s fingertips – into suburbia.

“Smart office owners are thinking ahead,” said Newman. “They may have a building today that is almost fully rented.  However, leases eventually expire and owners are looking at ways to retain these tenants. It goes beyond simple upgrades to ‘urbanizing’ the suburban office building and bringing what’s going on in New York to New Jersey."

Mirliss attributed the state Economic Development Authority’s Grow NJ Assistance Program as a key driver for the state’s office market.

Staff Writer Bob Makin: 732-565-7319; bmakin@gannettnj.com