Russo Development, Forsgate Industrial complete $42.5M Meadowlands purchase

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Russo Development and Forsgate Industrial Partners announced completing the $42.5 million purchase of the 718-acre Kingsland Tract, a former landfill spanning the municipalities of Lyndhurst, Rutherford and North Arlington.

The partnership will build Kingsland Meadowlands, a new logistics e-commerce development of up to six buildings totaling more than three million square feet of industrial space at the site.

To close the transaction, which Russo and Forsgate won in a competitive bidding process in June 2015, the partners engaged in a complex entitlement and engineering design process that resulted in a master plan that will transform this blighted property into a modern industrial complex unlike any other development of its kind in the Meadowlands region.

The partners expect to deliver the first building to the market in late 2021.

“The Meadowlands submarket is one of the strongest industrial/warehouse markets in the United States, and the opportunity to build this project in such an outstanding location is a great accomplishment for not only our companies, but for the region that we have helped develop over the course of more than 100 years of combined history,” said Edward Russo, chief executive officer of Russo Development.

According to the partners, both Russo and Forsgate Industrial Partners have been active in the Meadowlands since the 1960s, and are both in their second generation of family management.

There have been multiple failed attempts over the years to redevelop the Kingsland Tract. In the 1990s, plans for its redevelopment included golf courses and a luxury resort, but during the financial crisis the project failed and the site reverted to the NJSEA’s predecessor, the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, which completed a portion of an environmental clean-up program and offered the site for sale.

Tom Sullivan of CBRE represented the NJSEA in the marketing and sale of the property.