Office space for rent in Camden, N.J. for next to nothing

For the first time in five years, the Central Business District in Camden, N.J., got an infusion of office space and the right tenant can lease it for what amounts to $0 a square foot.

Yes. That’s right.

Rents on the space — once hefty subsidies kick in from the New Jersey Economic Opportunity Act ­— might look like $30 a square foot on paper but equate to a company paying nothing.

The space came available because L3 Communications has shrunk its offices at 100 Market St., and is vacating the second floor of the building. This will throw 116,000 square feet of empty space on the market. It also has meant the typically tight office market has seen its vacancy rate surge to 18 percent from 3 percent.

At the same time, Cooper’s Ferry Partnership is buying the office complex that L3 occupies for an undisclosed price from the New Jersey Department of Economic Development, which had it constructed in 1992 for the defense contractor. The property is comprised of a three-story, 350,000-square-foot office building and a two-story manufacturing structure that totals 225,000 square feet. This is the first time space has come available in the building.

Since multiple tenants will be occupying the property, it will be re-branded as the Camden Innovation Campus as it tries to shed its common reference as the “L3 Building.” The company is headquartered in New York.

The space coming onto the market happens to be timely, said Dan Close, an office broker with Jones Lang LaSalle, which is representing Cooper’s Ferry in backfilling the empty L3 space. Not much space has been available in the small Class A office market comprised of five buildings totaling about 800,000 square feet.

“Demand is exceeding supply,” he said.

That has helped pushed up rents to the mid-$20s a square foot, said Close, who is anticipating rents at 100 Market will be somewhere in the $30s a square foot.

Armed with funds from the Economic Opportunity Act, companies are increasingly looking at Camden as an option and that is also making the space at 100 Market even more attractive to prospective tenants.

“They are essentially being paid to locate to downtown Camden,” Close said.

For David Foster, president of the Cooper’s Ferry Partnership, owning the building and finding tenants to occupy it at subsidized rents is one piece of a long-term goal of creating a critical mass toward revitalizing Camden and its waterfront.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal