CoreWeave Pays $322M for New Jersey Facility

CoreWeave has paid $322 million for a 280,000-square-foot building within a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use campus in Kenilworth, N.J., according to Yardi Research Data. Onyx Equities and Machine Investment Group sold the property, which is part of the Northeast Science and Technology Center.

Newmark Co-Head of Strategic Advisory Andrew Warin and Executive Vice Chairman Josh King, together with Head of Data Center and Digital Infrastructure Capital Markets Brent Mayo, Co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Doug Harmon, Co-Head of Global Debt & Structured Finance Jordan Roeschlaub worked on behalf of the sellers.

CoreWeave purchased the 280,000-square-foot lab facility and the land immediately around it after signing a long-term lease for the building late last year, Ron Simoncini, a spokesperson with Onyx Equities, told Commercial Property Executive. “Onyx Equities and its partner Machine Investment Group continue to own and operate the balance of the site, and has more than 2 million square feet of space to lease on the campus,” he added.

The nine-building campus traded in 2023 for $187.5 million, when Onyx and Machine purchased it from Merck. A year later, the joint venture announced plans to redevelop the former Merck headquarters campus into a biotechnology hub with industrial, lab, office and R&D space. The buildings within NEST were completed between 1950 and 2014, and underwent renovations between 2006 and 2016.

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Occupying 107 acres, the campus at 2000 Galloping Hill Road is close to Garden State Parkway and allows easy access to interstates 78, 278 and 95. NEST is 8 miles from Newark Liberty International Airport and 15 miles from Jersey City, N.J. Science and technology companies nearby include Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Seton Hall University, among others.

NEST comprises three office buildings, two R&D facilities and a vivarium—a facility for live research. Additionally, it includes support buildings, such as a Cogen power plant, a boiler and chiller plant, a 50-megawatt substation and an onsite management office.

Amenities at NEST include a cafeteria, fitness center, conference center, courtyard, auditorium, heliport, as well as multiple underground garage facilities and a restaurant. There are also some 36 acres available for redevelopment purposes, with the former owner’s initial plans also featuring a full-service restaurant, retail spaces, an organic grocery store and a hotel with an onsite restaurant and rooftop bar.

Plans for more

In October last year, CoreWeave signed a long-term lease at NEST, fully occupying the 280,000-square-foot lab facility. At that time, the company announced plans to invest $1.2 billion in converting the building into a data center, its first one in New Jersey, according to NJBIZ. The Onyx-led venture would also pour more than $50 million into CoreWeave’s project.

At a May planning board meeting of the borough of Kenilworth, a CoreWeave official said the artificial intelligence company intends to convert the three-story lab building it occupies into a data center by making minimal improvements to the original structure such as adding stand-by generators and a field of chillers. An operation team of roughly 40 employees would work at the upcoming development. As of today, it is not clear whether CoreWeave plans to convert all buildings within NEST into data centers or just the one it occupies.

Last week, CoreWeave unveiled plans for a $6 billion data center project in Lancaster, Pa. This investment includes the redevelopment of two industrial facilities, an initial capacity of 100 megawatts and up to 300 megawatts at full build-out. Machine Investment Group and Chirisa Technology Parks will co-develop the project.