Developer plans 70K sf warehouse in Wayne

The warehouse space race isn’t over.

With the industrial market still tight, Monello Landscape Industries is seeking to build a four-story warehouse in the Passaic County township of Wayne, NorthJersey.com reported. The 70,000-square-foot building at 125 Pompton Plains Crossroad would feature a dozen loading docks, 39 parking spaces and 3,300 square feet of offices.

Putting an industrial property on the six-acre site requires a variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which will consider the application starting next week. March Associates Construction is the applicant and builder on the project.

Some concerns about the proposal have arisen. For starters, the site is fewer than 1,000 feet from the Pompton River and in an area prone to flooding. And the neighborhood is residential, which means Monello might meet resistance from folks who don’t want trucks near their homes, except to deliver their Amazon packages.

Five years ago, the zoning board approved a different plan for the site by a different company: Dobco was given permission to build a 42,000-square-foot office and construction equipment storage project. The firm later turned its focus to redeveloping a much larger Wayne property, the former Toys R Us headquarters, and Monello scooped up the smaller site in May for $2.5 million.

Wayne has approved two warehouses in the past 15 months, but the one on Pompton Plains Crossroad would be larger. The others were for a 25,000-square-foot facility on Newark Pompton Turnpike and a 60,000-square-foot project next to William Paterson University.

Industrial real estate is still hot in North Jersey, with a 1.4 percent vacancy rate in the fourth quarter, according to JLL.

Stonemont Financial Group is planning a 296,000-square-foot warehouse and logistics center in Passaic at the site of a devastating fire.

— Holden Walter-Warner