One Retail Center

Route One South
Lawrenceville, NJ

Krame Development acquired an existing Beefsteak Charlie’s restaurant along with its liquor license through the bankruptcy court. The restaurant, on approximately 2 acres, was located directly in front of the 400,000 square foot Mercer Mall Shopping Center and opposite the 1.2 million square foot Quackerbridge Mall on Route One in Lawrence Township, NJ. Extremely restrictive zoning guidelines and access issues significantly complicated the approval process; however, we successfully negotiated cross access easements with adjoining property owners and ultimately received a special access permit from the NJDEP. The property was subject to a long term land lease and we were not able to acquire fee simple title; which, made financing this project more complicated. All necessary governmental approvals were obtained, the existing building was torn down and a highly visible, efficient 27,600 square foot single-story retail building was constructed . Eighty percent of the space was leased to Office Max, a subsidiary of K-Mart at that time and the liquor license was sold for a significant profit.