Every signed lease evaporated. Virtually every prospective tenant reneged. We finished construction anyway, re-marketed the spaces ourselves, and leased all 15,000 SF again — with zero brokers, zero tenant improvement allowance, and zero wavering on our conviction in the Route 27 corridor.
Riya Commons was developed in two phases along Route 27 in South Brunswick — one of the most active and well-trafficked commercial corridors in Middlesex County. Phase 1, a 20,000 SF inline strip center, was completed in 2016 and fully leased by 2017. The property performed exactly as underwritten: service-based tenants, strong foot traffic, and zero turnover.
Phase 2 was the pad site — a 15,000 SF freestanding building at a high-visibility position fronting Route 27. By late 2019 and into early 2020, our leasing team had done its job: we had signed leases and letters of intent in hand for all 15,000 square feet. Construction was underway. The project was on track.
Then March 2020 arrived.
Phase 1 delivered 20,000 SF of inline retail space, completed in 2016 and fully leased by 2017. The initial phase established Riya Commons as a well-occupied neighborhood retail center, validating our thesis for the Route 27 corridor and setting the stage for the Phase 2 pad site development.
Construction on Phase 2 commenced with strong pre-leasing momentum. Signed leases and LOIs covered the full 15,000 SF — a rare position for a pad site of this size still under construction. Everything was tracking. Then, in March 2020, COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns brought New Jersey's economy to a halt.
The pandemic did not discriminate. Virtually every prospective tenant — businesses that had signed leases or executed LOIs — reneged on their commitments. The logic was understandable: no one knew when retail would reopen, how long restrictions would last, or what the commercial landscape would look like on the other side. For tenants still in their existing locations, walking away from a pre-signed lease on an unoccupied new space was an easy call.
For us, it was the defining moment of the project.
With no tenants committed, the conventional move would have been to pause construction, preserve capital, and wait for market clarity. We made the opposite call. We completed construction on schedule.
The reasoning was grounded in conviction, not optimism. Route 27 in South Brunswick is a primary commercial arterial serving one of the densest and highest-income populations in Middlesex County. The fundamentals that made the location attractive in 2019 hadn't changed. Temporary government shutdowns don't alter the demographic and traffic reality of a major corridor — they delay it.
We believed the post-pandemic rebound in neighborhood service retail would be sharp. We believed that a finished, move-in-ready building would lease faster than a partially completed shell. And we believed in our ability to find and close tenants ourselves.
Our leasing team went back to work. No brokers were engaged — the Route 27 corridor is a market we know better than any third party, and broker commissions on a building we already own at cost are margin we'd rather keep. No tenant improvement allowances were offered — we had underwritten the project without them, and our confidence in the asset meant we didn't need to give money away to get deals done.
We prospected directly: identifying service retailers who had survived the pandemic, whose business models were stronger for it, and who were actively seeking expansion space as restrictions lifted. We presented a finished product in a proven, high-traffic location — which is a fundamentally easier conversation than selling a rendering.
By the time construction was completed, we had secured leases for all 15,000 square feet. The entire pad site was spoken for before we handed over the first key.
No brokers. No tenant improvement allowances. No concessions. Just a finished building in the right location, direct leasing relationships, and the confidence to keep moving when everyone else stopped.
Leased entirely in-house, direct to tenants
No concessions necessary to close deals
Fully occupied and stable from day one
Most of what separates good real estate operators from great ones isn't visible in the deal metrics — it's visible in how they behave when the situation becomes uncomfortable. Anyone can lease a pad site in a hot market with a full pipeline of LOIs. The question is what you do when the pipeline evaporates overnight through no fault of your own.
We completed construction. We re-leased the building ourselves. We paid no brokers and offered no TI because we didn't need to — the asset was right, the location was right, and our leasing process was direct and effective enough to get it done. The tenants we brought in were not the desperate early adopters willing to sign anything to be first in a new building. They were stable, growth-oriented businesses that recognized a good location when they saw it.
That property has had zero tenant turnover since the day it opened. That is not an accident. It is the result of careful tenant selection, a strong leasing process, and the long-term perspective that comes from owning and managing what you build.