According to a sign posted on 707 Broad Street, Hanini Group and partners are proposing to add two additional floors of office space (50K square feet) to the 10-story 1926 building. The floor plates on this elegant building are about 50K each, so these new floors, if built, will cover only about half the space above.
Strange to see new office construction proposed when 19% of the office space in downtown Newark is vacant, and absorption was about -600K square feet last year.
Although the sign indicates that the proposal is scheduled to be heard at the March 13 meeting, as of now there's no documentation of this in the Planning Board's Google Drive account online.
Juicey_J_Hammerman t1_jbzht9k wrote
Could be it’s for a specific purpose or use to cater to certain types of commercial tenants, or space to offer additional amenities to attract new leases.
Not all office space is created equal either - theres decent variance between different office spaces depending on space class (A, B, etc), amenities/services offered, targeted, clientele , and of course location.
This building is also in a pretty good location for office space too: right on broad street in the heart of downtown near a subway/light rail entrance, still walkable to/from the train station, across from Military park, and plenty of services and other businesses nearby within walking distance to cater to office and employee needs.
Hanani may be under the impression it’s better to invest in adding on top of an existing asset vs buying a more vacant building.