A family-owned racking and shelving company has leased an entire industrial building in Bordentown, taking all 275,955 square feet of a recently renovated warehouse at 201 Elizabeth St. Diversified Rack & Shelving Inc. will occupy the full property under a deal with landlord Penwood Real Estate Investment Management LLC, moving into a facility built for heavy trailer traffic and tall storage racks.
The lease, in a transaction described as 275,955 square feet, has the commercial racking and shelving business taking over the whole building at 201 Elizabeth St., according to Real Estate NJ. Penwood owns the building through Penwood Select Industrial Fund VI LP, and the outlet reports the move brings Diversified Rack & Shelving's total footprint across its facilities to more than 600,000 square feet. That figure contrasts with the company's own website, which states that it currently operates three locations totaling 333,000 square feet of warehouse space, according to Diversified Rack & Shelving.
Diversified Rack & Shelving traces its roots to 1990, when founders Ron and Diana Longo launched the business out of a spare bedroom in their house, per the company's own account. It has grown into an operation that buys and sells new and used industrial rack and shelving systems, with staff who deliver and install the equipment for customers, the company says.
A Newly Upgraded Warehouse With Room to Maneuver
Before the lease was signed, Penwood completed a full-building renovation at 201 Elizabeth St. The improvements included office upgrades, new LED lighting, a new roof and new air rotation units, the report notes.
The building itself is built for scale. It offers 24-foot clear heights, 16 dock-high doors, three drive-in doors and roughly 155 trailer parking spaces spread across 3.75 acres of excess land, the same source reports. A prior report on Penwood's 2022 purchase of the property put the building at 275,631 square feet on a 39-acre site with four acres of outdoor storage and room for an additional 140,767 square feet of new construction, according to REBusinessOnline, which said Penwood paid $60 million for the warehouse at the time. The newer figures from this week's lease announcement put the site at 33.9 acres.
Highway Access Was Central to the Deal
Location appears to have been a major selling point. The 33.9-acre property provides immediate access to Routes 130 and 206 and sits about 1.5 miles from Interstate 295, the report states. It is also just three miles from Exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike, a corridor the report says connects the site to Philadelphia, Trenton and Port Newark-Elizabeth.
Cushman & Wakefield executive vice chair Chuck Fern, who represented Diversified Rack & Shelving in the transaction, said in the report that “well-located industrial facilities with modern functionality continue to see strong demand across central New Jersey.” Fern added that 201 Elizabeth Street offers the scale, trailer parking and highway connectivity suited to the tenant's operations. Mindy Lissner, David Gheriani, John Gartland and Michael Ugarte represented the landlord in the deal, the report notes.
Part of a Tight Industrial Market
The Bordentown lease lands in a Central and Northern New Jersey industrial market that has been running hot. The region recorded 7.38 million square feet of year-to-date net absorption through the third quarter of 2026, the strongest pace since 2022, according to a market report from Newmark. Overall vacancy fell to 6.5% in the same period, below the 20-year average, while Class A product captured 53.2% of year-to-date leasing even as construction starts dropped 58% year to date.
Average asking rents across the region eased to $16.43 per square foot in the third quarter, with the Class A premium narrowing to $3.55 per square foot, per the same Newmark data. Elsewhere in Central Jersey, Monica Franco has described demand for industrial space as strong while available inventory remains selective, a dynamic she discussed in connection with a 250,000-square-foot lease that Lee & Associates New Jersey arranged for a freight transportation services provider at 1 Buckingham Ave. in Perth Amboy, according to ROI-NJ. That Perth Amboy deal, which involved a tenant relocating from Union County to accommodate its expanding operations, brought the 407,700-square-foot building to full occupancy.
Locally, available options remain limited. PropertyShark data updated October 7 shows four industrial and warehouse listings for lease in Bordentown, representing half of the town's total commercial leasing inventory tracked by the site, according to PropertyShark. Against that backdrop, Diversified Rack & Shelving's move into a fully renovated, highway-adjacent building represents a notable expansion for the family-founded company as it grows its presence in the state's industrial corridor.
