G.S. Wilcox arranges $19.4M financing for NJ investor

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G.S. Wilcox & Co. said May 31 it arranged $19.4 million in financing for two office buildings, one located in Piscataway and another in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.

Partners Wesley Wilcox and Bridget Wilcox secured the funding for the unnamed, New Jersey-based investor from two of G.S. Wilcox’s correspondent life insurance company lenders.

In Piscataway, the team arranged $7.2 million to refinance a 100,000-square-foot multi-tenant office property that offers easy access and visibility from Interstate 287.

In Pennsylvania, Minnesota Life Insurance Co. provided a 10-year, fixed rate loan of $12.2 million for the acquisition of a 76,000-square-foot multi-tenant office site. According to G.S. Wilcox, the property is a 30-minute drive from Philadelphia and close to the affluent Main Line region.

“G.S. Wilcox & Co. is pleased to secure such favorable terms for these two well-located office properties despite the challenges this asset class has faced over these past few years,” Wesley and Bridget Wilcox said in a prepared joint statement.

It’s no secret that the office market was hit hard by restrictions enacted to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. In its New Jersey Office Report for the First Quarter of 2022, Colliers found losses in occupancy from the past two years hold the distinction of being the worst two-year period on record—surpassing those suffered between 2008 and 2009 during the global financial crisis and reaching 7.7 million square feet. On top of that, the office market’s current vacancy rate in New Jersey is the highest its been since 2015, with 9.1 million square feet of sublease space up for grabs. Now, as employers continue to figure out exactly what a return to work looks like, the market appears to have stagnated. According to the report, the availability rate in the sector stayed flat at 22.4% for the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first three months of the new year.

Based in Morristown, G.S. Wilcox is the only female-founded commercial real estate banking firm in the U.S. It provides debt and equity solutions to developers, real estate private equity firms, institutional investors and other owners of commercial real estate.