Boston Props to sell NJ office park for $468M

Boston Properties said it agreed to sell Carnegie Center, a 2 million square foot office park in Princeton, N.J., to a joint venture between Normandy Real Estate Partners and the Landis Group for $468 million.

In January, Doug Linde, president of Boston Properties, said the company might sell most or all of the 16-building complex, as part of a group of suburban properties that it was thinking about selling.

“I talked to Carnegie Center and we’re recapitalizing to sell a significant portion or a full on the entire Carnegie Center asset base depending on what that pricing looks like,” Linde told analysts in the January call, according to a transcript from SeekingAlpha.com. “We’d like to try and retain management and development because we still control the land for another seven-plus years and that will kind of play out.”

The firm said that the deal is contingent on closing by June 21, 2011, as part of a “like kind exchange,” under section 1031 of the Internal Revenue code, adding that either party may end the agreement at any time, without penalty.

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Analysts said the complex was about 87 percent occupied and Colliers International is reporting that average asking rents are $26.31 per square foot in the Princeton area.

Normandy, based in Morristown, N.J., previously acquired a 1.6 million-square-foot property in Westchester in 2009, and announced plans in late February to launch a new brand for the Exchange and a multi million-dollar renovation of the complex.

Normandy and Five Mile Capital previously sold the John Hancock Tower to Boston Properties for $930 million. Under that deal, Normandy will continue to manage the Hancock Tower for two years.