In the first half of 2023, office vacancy rates in Northern and Central New Jersey continued to rise, reaching nearly 27%, according to JLL’s Q2 NJ office leasing report. This increase was driven by diminished leasing activity and consolidations leading to over 1.3 million square feet of negative net absorption with Class A offices seeing the largest impact at 30.1%. The Route 78 submarket experienced the highest volume of negative absorption due mainly to 879,000 square feet available at 1 AT&T Way in Bedminster.
Flight-to-quality migration remained a notable trend as Kenvue leased a newly renovated 191,450-square-foot office building for its global headquarters on Summit East campus along with an additional 100,000 square foot R&D building under construction there as well.
