Ledgewood Commons in Roxbury Gets New Owner

ROXBURY, NJ – The Shops at Ledgewood Commons shopping center in Roxbury was bought recently by a company that likes to buy retail complexes in areas "with attractive population density and/or income levels."

The 51-acre property on Route 10 was sold early last month by Ledgewood Investors to Urban Edge Properties for about $83 million, according to property records.

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The records show Urban Edge (through UE Ledgewood LLC) paid $78.25 million for the main, 46.5-acre part of the site and $5 million for the adjacent 5.2-acre “outparcel” where the Red Lobster and Wendy’s restaurants are situated.

On its website, the publicly traded, New York City-based Urban Edge says it “acquires retail properties with the potential for lease up, expansion and redevelopment in high barrier-to-entry” markets.

Ledgewood Investors (a creation of Advance Realty of Bridgewater) bought the property – formerly known as the Ledgewood Mall – in 2015 for $28.9 million. The developers subsequently took out a $72.5 million construction loan from Santander Bank in 2019.

At the time, the 43-year-old Ledgewood Mall was in dire straits, having lost most of its tenants.

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The new owners converted the former indoor mall into one similar to the Roxbury Mall, where none of the stores are internally connected. They demolished some structures, built some new ones and retrofitted others. A new 164,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenter – the main anchor of the shopping center – replaced the old 41,000-square-foot Walmart in 2020.

Neither Urban Edge Properties nor Ledgewood Investors have formally announced the sale and their spokespersons could not be reached for comment.

Roxbury Mayor Jaki Albrecht said she’d not heard about the transaction, but she took the news as an indicating the viability of Roxbury as a place for investment. “It goes to show Roxbury is indeed a vibrant community where companies want to do business,” she said.

Urban Edge, on its website, says it focuses on purchasing “larger grocery-anchored centers, neighborhood centers, community centers, lifestyle centers and street retail.” It also says it prefers buying “assets located in established retail corridors.”

Among the company’s holdings in New Jersey near Roxbury are Rockaway River Commons in Rockaway, Briarcliff Commons in Morris Plains and Hanover Commons in East Hanover.

Urban Edge said it prefers “assets with the potential for lease up, expansion and redevelopment … with attractive population density and/or income levels.” It says it owns 77 properties totaling 17.2 million square feet of gross leasable area.

The assessed value of both Ledgewood Commons parcels bought by Urban Edge is about $68 million, according to property records.

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