Broker pitching Roche campus

Roche's real estate broker has started pitching the global drug maker's nearly 2-million-square-foot campus, which straddles Clifton and Nutley.

Roche hasn't set an asking price, said Thomas Stanton, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle, who is leading the sales team. Instead, he said, Jones Lang LaSalle will market the property to interested developers and allow them to make offers, based on "all the variables involved," including the requirements of the two towns.

"It's an important piece of real estate," Stanton said. "The appeal is the proximity to New York City. We're just 10 miles away."

Stanton said he hopes a buyer will be identified this year, though the full redevelopment of the site will take a number of years. Jones Lang LaSalle will be selling 116 acres of Roche's 119-acre campus. Roche spokeswoman Darien Wilson said the broker won't handle the sale of a small part of the acreage that includes a child care center. Roche's property borders Route 3, at 340 Kingsland St., between Darling and Cathedral avenues.

The drug maker is looking to sell its property, which has about 40 buildings, in a single transaction, Stanton said.

The Roche campus has what Jones Lang LaSalle described as "five high-value building assets, two of which are modern R&D properties." The plan is for a developer to keep those structures on-site.

One of the research-and-development buildings is 504,000 square feet, and has chemistry, biology, vivarium (enclosed area for raising animals or plants for research) and support space, as well as a 130-seat auditorium, offices and collaboration space. The second one is 176,000 square feet, and features an 85-seat auditorium and an enclosed, glass walkway to the other research building.

In addition, the campus has two office buildings - one a newly renovated glass 15-story high-rise that bears Roche's name, with 325,000 square feet. The other has 250,000 square feet, and is seven stories tall. A fifth building has 281,456 square feet of manufacturing-capable area.

The Roche campus features an on-site central utility plant, a multi-purpose data center as well as "excess acreage available for future development," according to Jones Lang LaSalle. The property also includes two easements - a Norfolk Southern rail line, and a water pipeline connecting Jersey City with its reservoir in Parsippany.

The international design firm Perkins Eastman - at the request of Roche, Clifton and Nutley - developed a master plan for the campus. It has three mixed-use proposals for the site, which all include a hotel, office and lab space, light manufacturing, retail, high-end residential and senior housing.

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