Construction Begins on MetLife Investments’ New Global HQ in Hanover

On Apr 21, 2015

A joint venture of Vision Real Estate Partners and Rubenstein Partners broke ground today on a 185,000-square-foot, Class A Office facility that will be the new global headquarters for MetLife Investments. The new headquarters for the investments business of MetLife, Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, will be located on 14 acres fronting Whippany Road in Hanover. Cushman & Wakefield handled the leasing of the property.

Designed to sustainability standards for LEED Gold Core and Shell and LEED Platinum Interiors, the facility will feature an open floor plan with collaborative workspaces and breakout rooms, a town hall with technologically advanced conference facilities, a fitness center, employee food court with indoor and outdoor seating, and café. It will offer approximately 4.5 parking spaces per 1,000 feet of rentable area, through a combination of surface, structured and under building executive parking.

“Every inch of this building is being crafted to meet the new generation of workforce standards,” noted Vision Real Estate Partners’ Sam Morreale, founder and managing partner. “MetLife Investments set out to provide a world-class, fully amenitized environment for its regional employees. The opportunity to partner with this forward-thinking corporation to create a flagship asset that centers on sustainability and quality of life is an honor for our organization in partnership with Rubenstein.”

“Our investments business has grown significantly in size, scope and scale, and this new state-of-the-art global headquarters will enable us to continue to provide all of our stakeholders with world-class products,” said Steven J. Goulart, executive vice president and Chief Investment Officer for MetLife. “We are looking forward to moving into our new offices, which will provide many amenities and a well-designed work environment for our associates.”

Goulart added: “We are excited to be working with such experienced and capable real estate development partners.”

A Cushman & Wakefield team of Bruce Mosler, chairman of Global Brokerage, Ethan Silverstein, and David Susoreny from the firm’s New York Midtown office; Bill Brown from the Morristown, NJ, office; Andrew Merin, of the firm’s Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group located in East Rutherford, NJ, represented MetLife in the transaction.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Robert Donnelly and Robert Donnelly, Jr. head the 67 Whippany Road marketing team and represented the property ownership in the lease to MetLife.

South Campus Moves Forward

The MetLife building marks the launch of 67 Whippany Road’s 100-acre South Campus component. The 94-acre balance houses Bayer Healthcare’s new, 675,000-square-foot East Coast headquarters. In another Cushman & Wakefield-brokered transaction, the Vision Real Estate Partners/Rubenstein Partners joint venture sold that parcel to Bayer and custom-built the pharmaceutical leader’s LEED-certified facility, which includes approved expansion for up to 200,000 square feet. Together, these projects total nearly 1.1 million square feet in approved corporate space, effectively replacing the 1.4 million square feet of obsolete Alcatel-Lucent offices existing when the partnership acquired the campus in 2010.

“The MetLife lease is another major milestone in executing our plan to revitalize this property,” said Eric Schiela, managing principal and chief operating officer of Rubenstein Partners. “We have created a benchmark in the drive to improve underutilized, infill office real estate to institutional grade. It validates the idea that if you can acquire at a basis that allows for the investment required to redevelop in a first-class manner, and work alongside first-class local partners, corporate tenants, and municipalities, you can successfully update older corporate real estate in a way that appeals to modern users and benefits the community.”

The Vision Real Estate Partners/Rubenstein Partners joint venture continues to pursue further development of the considerable remaining acreage in the South Campus section. The joint venture partners intend to create a mixed-use environment, with retail, hospitality, residential and senior living uses possible to complement the corporate offices. Separately, Vision Real Estate Partners and Rubenstein Partners are completing traffic improvements on behalf of Hanover Township, including major modifications to the nearby intersection of Whippany and Parsippany Roads, to improve the existing and anticipated future flow of traffic in this area.

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