The owners of Bergen Town Center have sold a piece of the Paramus mall slated for a big housing development for $25 million.
During a fourth-quarter earnings call last week, executives for Urban Edge Properties briefly discussed the deal, which is pending. According to a transcript of the Feb. 12 call on Yahoo Finance, Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Mooallem, highlighted the company's sale of "a freestanding building and parking field at Bergen Town Center in Paramus to a multi-family developer."
CEO Jeffrey Olsen said Urban Edge had created "a lot of value by entitling that land for about 450 residential units, and we felt that the best way to monetize that value was to sell it to a local developer."
The name of the developer was not mentioned by Urban Edge staff during the call. But according to CoStar, a real estate news and analysis company that first reported the sale, the buyer is Russo Development LLC.
Russo Development shares a Carlstadt address with Russo Acquisitions, the company that recently filed a revised application before the Paramus Planning Board to build 426 residential units and 5,000 square feet of additional retail at Bergen Town Center. The earnings call does not make clear if the property and development discussed was the current one before the Planning Board or another potential project.
The current application calls for demolishing a building on the east side of the mall property that currently contains a former Kirkland's, Red Robin and Recreational Equipment Inc. The building would be replaced with two multifamily residential buildings with shops on the first floor.
The 426 units would include 147 one-bedroom apartments to be sold at market rate and another 12 set aside as affordable housing. The project, if approved, would also have a total of 1,572 parking spaces, including lots from other areas of the mall property and two parking garages.
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Asked about the sale this week, Wendy Pierce, a spokeswoman for Bergen Town Center, said "we do not comment on pending transactions." A message left for Jason Tuvel, a Hackensack attorney representing Russo Acquisitions before the Planning Board, was not returned this week.
Bergen Town Center is part of a trend of shopping malls around the country that have looked to add housing and other amenities as they battle competition from online shopping. Elsewhere in Paramus, the owners of Westfield Garden State Plaza say they expect to break ground later this year on a project that could add as many as 1,400 apartments, along with more retail. Another approved plan would construct two apartment buildings with 360 residences next to the Paramus Park mall, taking over about 60,000 square feet of parking lot outside the Macy's department store.