JLL orchestrates North American headquarters relocation for premium brand auto manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover
JLL recently completed a long-term lease for Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC at 1 Sharp Plaza in Mahwah, N.J. with The Becker Organization. The luxury automobile manufacturer will lease the entire 147,000-square-foot office building and construct an additional 30,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art training center.
The tenant’s interests were represented by a collaborative effort between David Stifelman,Scott Stange, Scott Lesh, Joseph Garibaldi and Dan Breen, all with JLL. Building owner, The Becker Organization, was represented in-house by Bryan Becker, founder and CEO.
“Jaguar Land Rover plans to open a state-of-art facility at 1 Sharp Plaza that will showcase its products,” said Stifelman. “The new complex will house the luxury automobile manufacturer’s North American headquarters as well as a dealership training and technical center. In addition, Jaguar Land Rover intends for the site to become the ultimate consumer experience facility.”
The JLL team orchestrated the transaction, beginning with contacting Sharp Electronics Corp. on behalf of Jaguar Land Rover.The electronics firm was in the midst of selling 1 Sharp Plaza to The Becker Organization via a sale-leaseback transaction.
“After a thorough canvass of the market, it became clear to us we would need to pursue a new strategy to locate suitable space for Jaguar Land Rover’s planned new facility,” said Stange. “We knew Sharp’s complex in Mahwah would make an ideal location for our client, so we reached out to executives at the electronics firm to let them know we had a client that was interested in leasing the facility.Although Sharp was involved in a complex sale-leaseback, company executives were receptive to the idea.”
Once Sharp agreed to relocate, the electronics firm hadto identify a suitable facility and terminate its existing lease at 1 Sharp Plaza, and Jaguar Land Rover needed to finalize its lease with The Becker Organization. The entire transaction hinged on approvals from the landlord and the lender, and the new expansionrequired the approval of the Township of Mahwah. JLL worked closely with Jaguar Land Roverand secured an incentives package from the state of New Jersey.
“This was an incredibly complex transaction with many moving pieces,” said Breen. “JLL helpedJaguar Land Rover secure $28 million in state incentives, which played a critical role inenabling the luxury automobile manufacturer to open its new complex here in New Jersey.”
Jaguar Land Rover signed a long-term lease for 1 Sharp Plaza, which includesa 147,000-square-foot office building. The luxury automobile manufacturer intends to construct a 30,000-square-foot addition to the office property to accommodate its new training and technical center.
The Sharp complex was constructed for the electronics firm in 1985 on the same spot that once housed a Ford Motor Co. automobile manufacturing plant. The site is located adjacent to Route 17 and Route 287, and is close to the New York state border and the New York State Thruway. Sharp recently signed a transaction to relocate its U.S. headquarters to100 Paragon Drive in Montvale, N.J.
JLL is a leader in the northern/central New Jersey commercial real estate market, with more than 1,000 professionals and support staff providing agency leasing and property marketing, tenant representation, industrial services, strategic consulting, occupancy planning, workplace strategies, project and development services, property and facility management, and investment sales/capital markets services to New Jersey's leading corporate tenants, investors and landlords. The firm, which assists clients from three full-service offices in Parsippany, Iselin (Metropark) and East Rutherford, also acts as a local service provider for JLL’s global and national corporate clients in need of real estate assistance in New Jersey. JLL’s New Jersey operations were honored by NJBiz magazine as one of its 2015 Best Places to Work in New Jersey.
About JLL
JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a professional services and investment management firm offering specialized real estate services to clients seeking increased value by owning, occupying and investing in real estate. A Fortune 500 company with annual fee revenue of $5.2 billion and gross revenue of $6.0 billion, JLL has more than 280 corporate offices, operates in more than 80 countries and has a global workforce of more than 60,000. On behalf of its clients, the firm provides management and real estate outsourcing services for a property portfolio of 4.0 billion square feet, or 372 million square meters, and completed $138 billion in sales, acquisitions and finance transactions in 2015. Its investment management business, LaSalle Investment Management, has $59.1 billion of real estate assets under management. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit www.jll.com.
