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Before Sanofi ceased most operations at a roughly 110-acre site in Bridgewater about a year ago, the global pharmaceutical company had used the land as a corporate campus primarily made up of offices and laboratory space.
Now the property’s new owners have a different vision in mind: a mixed-use town center that includes apartments, biking trails, retail space, a hotel, offices, labs and even a day care center. Instead of getting in their cars, people could grab lunch or a beer after work by walking to on-site restaurants.
In short, the concept is meant to attract businesses and workers looking for more than just a typical suburban office complex.
“I think the repositioning of this site ... if we’re successful, shows the resilience of New Jersey and Somerset County that…we can come back and we can reinvent ourself,” said Peter Cocoziello, president and CEO of Bedminster-based Advance Realty, one of the property owners.
That reinvention may serve as a model for other communities faced with vacant or underutilized office complexes that have become less appealing to a workforce drawn to the amenities offered in more urban settings, officials said.
“There’ll be a lot of lessons we can take from this as to how to encourage this kind of redevelopment, if towns want it,” said Michael Kerwin, president and CEO of the Somerset County Business Partnership. “It’s gonna be up to each municipality in terms of the zoning, but (if) they want to see it happen ... this’ll be a direction they can go in.”
Sanofi ceased most operations at the Bridgewater campus, located off Route 202/206, in July 2012 after transferring activities to the Boston area and the company’s existing North American headquarters at another Bridgewater location, company spokeswoman Elizabeth Baxter said.
Advance Realty and Boston-based CrossHarbor Capital Partners acquired the property in April.
“Companies want to be near town centers. Their employees want to be near town centers. The employees want to know that if they need to…buy something or do something, it’s close. They can walk,” Cocoziello said. “We’re basically…creating a town center.”
Under the vision outlined by Cocoziello, the front of the property closer to Route 202/206 would be redesigned to include about 450 apartments, 100,000 square feet of retail space, a 175-room hotel and 400,000 square feet of office space.
The rear of the property then would provide 800,000 square feet of laboratory space within pre-existing Sanofi buildings for what developers are calling the “New Jersey Center of Excellence at Bridgewater,” Cocoziello said.
Two companies – Amneal Pharmaceuticals and Ashland Specialty Ingredients – already have moved into that area, but there is about 450,000 square feet still available, Cocoziello said.
Once the overall project is completed, it will be home to 3,000 to 4,000 employees, providing economic benefits to the surrounding community, Cocoziello said.
“These people buy houses. They get haircuts. They buy ice cream,” he said. “They buy clothes (and) do all the things that really creates…an economic society.”
Bridgewater Mayor Daniel Hayes Jr. said the proposal would require re-zoning the property and stressed that the process of evaluating the project is just beginning.
But the mayor said a mixed-use approach makes sense for the property in order to provide the amenities sought by workers. “We need to understand what that entry-level workforce requires and…we need to offer that as well, and I think that that’s where the mixed-use comes in,” Hayes said.
Suburban office complexes have long been a staple of New Jersey’s economic landscape, but experts say they have become less attractive to companies, in part because their employees don’t want to work in such isolated environments.
That shift has driven employers to more urban settings where workers have access to restaurants, shops and other amenities as well as public transportation.
Peter Kasabach, executive director of New Jersey Future, a nonprofit organization dedicated to land-use policies, said “people are looking for a different lifestyle.”
“They’re not looking to drive from their suburban house with their lawn and go to a suburban campus and sit in a cubicle for all day…and maybe go down to the cafeteria, and then drive back to their suburban house,” Kasabach added.
Isn't there already a large mall and town center across the street (well 202/287) - is there the need. Hate to see jobs lost anywhere - Sanofi seems to be moving and more things up to Cambridge MA these days and has an unfinished building just a little further down 206.
Would rather see more jobs than another town center there
And how is the single lane Rt. 202/206 going to handle the traffic to/from the new "town center"?
thats what im thinking. the traffic would be terrible
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