Massive BASF complex on Route 80 falls to the wrecking ball. Here’s what will replace it

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Demolition is underway at the 930,000-square-foot former North American headquarters of BASF Corp. in Mount Olive, almost 20 years after the company abandoned one of the largest office buildings ever built in New Jersey.

The demolition project, approved in August by Mount Olive officials, is expected to be complete by the end of the year. The township planning board has already approved a new warehouse project on the property along Route 80 West, with site work on the new construction expected to begin next year, according to Mount Olive Business Administrator Andrew Tatarenko.

"They look like they are about halfway done," Tatarenko said. "All the parking decks have been taken down. It looks like it's going smoothly."

Monroe-based Matrix Development, which bought the vacant 97-acre property in 2019, submitted plans last year to demolish the five-story building and two parking decks and replace them with a 585,000-square-foot warehouse facility. The planning board approved the project, now called Morris Crossings, in August.

Efforts to contact Matrix were unsuccessful. The company already is building a 200,000-square-foot warehouse nearby at the corner of Continental and International drives.

Why office parks are falling

The demolition continues a dramatic evolution of the Morris County commercial landscape. The county was once a magnet for Fortune 500 corporations with its millions of square feet of office space, a network of major highways and ample hotel rooms.

Now, many of the office buildings built from the late 1970s to the early '90s are being bulldozed in favor of redevelopment, responding to an era that demands less office space as more employees work remotely. In nearby Parsippany, 1,400 new residential units are currently under construction at three sites formerly occupied by office buildings.

More empty buildings are facing the wrecking ball as developers fuel a wave of warehouse construction, to meet the demands of online shoppers and next-day deliveries. In Roxbury, developers have applied to build 2.5 million square feet of warehouses on the site of the former Hercules munitions plant.

BASF campus in Mount Olive

BASF, a global chemical maker based in Germany, began construction of its new North American headquarters in 1990 within Mount Olive's Foreign Trade Zone No. 44, one of five trade zones established in New Jersey by the federal government.

The first phase of construction was completed in 1994. A second phase was finished in 1998, according to a 2014 report by the Urban Land Institute of Northern New Jersey. At its peak, as many as 2,000 employees worked at the Mount Olive complex.

"However, by 2003, only five years after the expansion, the corporate campus that BASF had proudly constructed just a decade prior had outlived its usefulness," the Institute said in its study, which looked at redevelopment options for the site.

BASF abandoned the property in 2004 and moved its headquarters to Florham Park. The Mount Olive campus was sold to a developer in 2006.

"But the timing could not have been worse," the study continued. "When the Great Recession hit, the developer was unable to tenant the building, and the site was acquired by Wells Fargo Bank in 2010."

Numerous attempts to revive and remarket the property have failed since then. Now, the massive red-brick structure, visible from Route 80, will soon vanish from the landscape.

Morris Crossings project takes shape

The warehouse replacing the BASF building will include 110 loading bays, 160 parking spaces and 285 parking spaces, according to testimony to the planning board by representatives of the project.

More: Warehouses, distribution centers are popping up all over North Jersey. Here's where and why

The warehouse will be surrounded by an eight-foot-high chain-link security fence. Light pollution is not expected to be an issue for residents from 30-foot light poles as the property is relatively secluded and surrounded by forested land, with the wide Route 80 corridor to its south, according to testimony by Matrix's consultants.

The developer's experts estimated 10 to 15 trucks per hour would enter the facility during peak times.

The project will include a cell tower to replace the current one on the property, which is used by the Mount Olive Police for radio communications. Police will have continued use of the new 150-foot tower, according to the plans submitted.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com

Twitter: @wwesthoven

This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Former BASF office in Mount Olive NJ off Route 80 demolished