Two industrial properties in Kearny and Newark just sold for a combined $68.5 million, locking up nearly 15 acres of increasingly hard-to-find logistics land near one of the busiest port complexes on the East Coast. The buyer, a firm called Outpost, picked up sites at 76 Central Ave. in Kearny and 2120 McCarter Highway in Newark, with plans to pave, light, secure and improve access at both locations.
The sale was announced Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, according to Daily Voice, which reported that JLL arranged the transaction and secured $52.2 million in financing through Forbright Bank. The Kearny property spans 8.04 acres and comes with roughly 4,000 square feet of office and maintenance space, the outlet reported.
The Newark property is where the numbers get a little muddled. Daily Voice put that site at 6.93 acres, describing it as fully leased to a Fortune 100 company for trailer storage and parking, while a CityFeet listing for the same McCarter Highway address describes a 232,000-square-foot lot — a discrepancy neither source resolves. Either way, the site's existing lease to a major tenant adds a layer of built-in cash flow to the deal, though the company involved and lease terms were not disclosed.
Why This Patch of North Jersey Matters
Both properties sit close to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal and Newark Liberty International Airport, with easy reach to Interstates 95, 78 and 280 — the kind of location that logistics operators fight over. Outpost managing director Chenying Zhao put it bluntly in comments to the same outlet: “Sites like Kearny and Newark are increasingly scarce, while demand for large, functional, properly zoned logistics facilities continues to grow.”
Zhao also said the company is committed to Port Newark-Elizabeth and the broader northern New Jersey market for the long haul, and that Outpost is actively deploying capital to acquire low-coverage yards, truck terminals, transload facilities and cross-docks across the region, per the report. JLL, for its part, said demand for industrial outdoor storage properties remains strong as available land near major transportation hubs keeps shrinking.
A Market Running Hot on Scarce Land
The Kearny-Newark deal lands amid a broader surge in industrial outdoor storage investment across New Jersey. A Newmark report cited by re-nj.com found that national rents for this type of property jumped 123% between 2020 and September 2025 — more than double the pace of bulk warehouses — while carrying roughly half the vacancy rate. In northern New Jersey specifically, the outlet reported five-year rent growth of around 110% for both outdoor storage and bulk warehouse space.
That same reporting noted the buyer pool for these properties has shifted, moving from value-add investors chasing vacant or short-leased sites toward core and core-plus buyers hunting lower-risk deals with steadier tenancies — a pattern that lines up with the leased Newark site changing hands here. Elsewhere in the state, smaller deals point to the same scarcity: Sagard Real Estate and La Caisse paid roughly $10 million, or nearly $7 million per acre, for a 1.44-acre outdoor storage portfolio in Moonachie, according to the same report, while BINJE reported that RCG Realty LLC paid $6.35 million for a 6-acre site with six warehouse and maintenance buildings in Aberdeen, part of a 1031 exchange following its sale of a smaller Union County property.
Northern New Jersey Industrial Market
NAI James E. Hanson published a third-quarter 2026 report on Northern New Jersey industrial properties.
Plans for 76 Central Ave. and 2120 McCarter Highway include paving, lighting, security upgrades and improved access, as described in the Daily Voice report.
