As suburban office parks struggle to lure tenants not decamping for more urban environments, some are investing princely sums to renovate their buildings in the hope of capturing a slice of the shrinking pie.
"Owners of suburban office space in [New Jersey] face a difficult environment," writes Ronda Kaysen. "Eighty percent of the office buildings were built in the 1980s and 1990s during the reign of the suburban, self-contained corporate campus, according to a report by Rutgers University [PDF]. But over the last decade, businesses and workers fled the isolation of the suburbs in favor of accessible city centers. Added to that, businesses have been reluctant to sign leases or expand operations in a lackluster economy."
While some office parks are embarking on mixed-use redevelopment in the face of high vacancy rates and low rents, others are taking a different tack and investing in costly renovations to create corporate campuses "updated for a modern work force." One example is Novo Nordisk's new North American headquarters in Plainsboro, where a $225 million gut renovation "took a drab, bunkerlike edifice and made it a shiny example of how New Jersey’s aging suburban office stock could be reimagined for a new era."
FULL STORY: Drab Office in New Jersey Gets the Cinderella Treatment
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
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Southern Californians Survey Trees for Destructive Oak Pest
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Opinion: How Geothermal HVAC Lowers Costs, Improves Grid Resilience
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Tenant Screening: A Billion-Dollar Industry with Little Oversight. What’s Being Done to Protect Renters?
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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Borough of Carlisle
Smith Gee Studio
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)