New Jersey firm buys, revives distressed office properties

A north New Jersey real estate investment company formed to acquire distressed properties in the office market after 2008 held a grand opening this month for its renovated office suites center in downtown White Plains.

The KABR Group offers hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rentals to business owners at the 23,000-square-foot Westchester Business Center. The office center is on the fourth floor of 75 S. Broadway, the 95,000-square-foot class B office building acquired by KABR in 2012.

The Ridgefield Park, N.J., company that year made its first deal in Westchester County when it joined with Capstone Realty Group Inc. to acquire 465 Columbus Ave. in Valhalla, whose owner had defaulted on a $13.6 million mortgage.

Both Westchester properties have been renovated by the new owner, said Adam Altman, managing member of KABR Group. He said the company has invested more than $1 million in renovations and technological upgrades in the four-story White Plains building.

Altman declined to disclose occupancy rates for the Westchester properties, but said, “We”™re well-occupied.” At the 100,000-sqaure-foot Valhalla office building, where occupancy was about 60 percent before the purchase two years ago, KABR has turned “a struggling asset” into a “very stable” one, he said.

Monthly rents for offices at the Westchester Business Center start at $499. Staffed full time by a general manager and a receptionist, the center also offers workstations for temporary use by professionals and students that can be rented hourly and a Psych Room for mental health counseling. Altman said “the biggest accolade” from business tenants has been for KABR”™s addition of high Internet bandwidth in the building.

“We create a class A office experience for small entrepreneurial businesses and allow them to have an outside opportunity of being as robust and technologically efficient as they want,” Altman said.

Altman said the center”™s tenants include the usual office-suite mix of marketing executives, accountants and attorneys, in addition to others from “less obvious” professions seeking office space and equipment ”“ psychologists, social workers and technology professionals. “That”™s been a great surprise and a good one,” he said.

Altman said he and his partners at KABR might acquire more distressed properties in the county. “Westchester is a great community and we”™d love to continue our activity in Westchester,” he said.