13.  COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

 

TAX ABATEMENT AGREEMENTS

Pursuant to agreements with certain municipalities, the Company is required to make payments in lieu of property taxes (“PILOT”) on certain of its properties located in Jersey City and has a tax abatement agreement with Weehawken, New Jersey, as follows: 

 

The Harborside Plaza 4-A agreement with the City of Jersey City, as amended, which commenced in 2002, is for a term of 20 years.  The annual PILOT is equal to two percent of Total Project Costs, as defined.  Total Project Costs are $49.5 million.  The PILOT totaled $990,000 for each of the years ended December 31, 2013,  2012 and 2011, respectively.

 

The Harborside Plaza 5 agreement, also with the City of Jersey City, as amended, which commenced in 2002, is for a term of 20 years.  The annual PILOT is equal to two percent of Total Project Costs, as defined.  Total Project Costs are $170.9 million.  The PILOT totaled $3.4 million for each of the years ended December 31, 2013,  2012 and 2011, respectively.

 

The Company also has an agreement with the City of Weehawken for its Port Imperial 4/5 garage development project (acquired in the Roseland Transaction).  The agreement was executed in March 2011 and has a term of five years beginning when the first certificate of occupancy is issued for any portion of the project, which was issued in the third quarter 2013.  The agreement provides that real estate taxes be paid initially on the land value of the project only and allows for a phase in of real estate taxes on the value of the improvements over a five year period.

 

The Company also has an agreement with the City of Rahway for its Park Square multi-family rental property.  The agreement executed in 2009 provides that real estate taxes will be partially abated, on a declining scale, for four years from 2011 through 2015.

 

At the conclusion of the above-referenced agreements, it is expected that the properties will be assessed by the municipality and be subject to real estate taxes at the then prevailing rates.

 

LITIGATION

The Company is a defendant in litigation arising in the normal course of its business activities.  Management does not believe that the ultimate resolution of these matters will have a materially adverse effect upon the Company’s financial condition taken as whole.

 

GROUND LEASE AGREEMENTS

Future minimum rental payments under the terms of all non-cancelable ground leases under which the Company is the lessee, as of December 31, 2013, are as follows: (dollars in thousands)

 

 

Ground lease expense incurred by the Company during the years ended December 31, 2013,  2012 and 2011 amounted to $406,000, $406,000 and $406,000, respectively.

 

ROSELAND CONTINGENT CONSIDERATION

On October 23, 2012, the Company acquired the real estate development and management businesses (the “Roseland Business”) of Roseland Partners, L.L.C. (“Roseland Partners”), a premier multi-family rental community developer and manager based in Short Hills, New Jersey, and the Roseland Partners’ interests (the “Roseland Transaction”), principally through unconsolidated joint venture interests in various entities which, directly or indirectly, own or have rights with respect to various multi-family rental, commercial properties and vacant land (collectively, the “Roseland Assets”).

 

The purchase price for the Roseland Transaction included the fair value of contingent consideration pursuant to an earn-out (“Earn Out”) agreement of approximately $10 million.  The Earn Out largely represents contingent consideration and requires the Company to pay Roseland Partners up to an aggregate maximum of $15.6 million.  The Earn Out is based on defined criteria, as follows: (i) the Roseland Assets component of up to $8.6 million for the completion of certain developments ($2.8 million), and the start of construction on others ($2.8 million), obtaining tax credits/grants on others ($3.0 million), all of which are payable over various periods of up to three years; and (ii) total return to shareholders for up to an additional $7 million, based on a total return to shareholders measured on a three year cumulative basis and on discrete years, both on an absolute basis and in comparison to a peer group.  Each of the Earn Out elements were separately valued as of the acquisition date with an aggregate fair value of contingent consideration of approximately $10 million (representing $6.3 million for the Roseland Assets and $3.7 million for the total return to shareholders component).  During the year ended December 31, 2013, the Company recognized benefits totaling $2.3 million related to declines in fair value in the Earn Out liability, which is included in Interest and other investment income for the period.  Prospectively, the Earn Out liability will be remeasured at fair value quarterly until the contingency has been resolved, with any changes in fair value representing a charge or benefit directly to earnings (with no adjustment to purchase accounting).  As a result of the achievement of certain of the defined criteria, the Company paid Roseland Partners $2.8 million related to the Roseland Assets component of the Earn Out on January 25, 2013. 

 

The purchase consideration for the Roseland Transaction is subject to the return of a portion of the purchase price of up to $2.0 million upon the failure to achieve a certain level of fee revenue from the Roseland Business during the 33-month period following the closing date.  Because the fee target was highly probable, no discount was ascribed to this contingently returnable consideration.  Also, at the closing, approximately $34 million in cash of the purchase price was deposited in escrow to secure certain of the indemnification obligations of Roseland Partners and its affiliates.  In April 2013, $6.7 million of the escrow was released to Roseland Partners.

 

OTHER

The Company may not dispose of or distribute certain of its properties, currently comprised of seven properties with an aggregate net book value of approximately $124.0 million, which were originally contributed by certain unrelated common unitholders, without the express written consent of such common unitholders, as applicable, except in a manner which does not result in recognition of any built-in-gain (which may result in an income tax liability) or which reimburses the appropriate specific common unitholders for the tax consequences of the recognition of such built-in-gains (collectively, the “Property Lock-Ups”).  The aforementioned restrictions do not apply in the event that the Company sells all of its properties or in connection with a sale transaction which the Company’s Board of Directors determines is reasonably necessary to satisfy a material monetary default on any unsecured debt, judgment or liability of the Company or to cure any material monetary default on any mortgage secured by a property.  The Property Lock-Ups expire periodically through 2016.  Upon the expiration of the Property Lock-Ups, the Company is generally required to use commercially reasonable efforts to prevent any sale, transfer or other disposition of the subject properties from resulting in the recognition of built-in gain to the specific common unitholders, which include members of the Mack Group (which includes William L. Mack, Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors; David S. Mack, director; Earle I. Mack, a former director; and Mitchell E. Hersh, president, chief executive officer and director), the Robert Martin Group (which includes Robert F. Weinberg, a former director and current member of its Advisory Board), and the Cali Group (which includes John R. Cali, a former director and current member of its Advisory Board).  121 of the Company’s properties, with an aggregate net book value of approximately $1.5 billion, have lapsed restrictions and are subject to these conditions.

 

In December 2011, the Company entered into a development agreement (the “Development Agreement”) with Ironstate Development LLC (“Ironstate”) for the development of multi-family rental towers with associated parking and ancillary retail space on land owned by the Company at its Harborside complex in Jersey City, New Jersey (the “URL Harborside Project”).  The first phase of the project is expected to consist of a parking pedestal to support a high-rise tower of approximately 763 apartment units and is estimated to cost approximately $315 million, of which development costs of $9.4 million have been incurred through December 31, 2013.  The parties anticipate the first phase will be ready for occupancy by approximately the third quarter of 2016.    In October 2013, the first phase of the project was awarded up to $33 million in future tax credits (“URL Tax Credits”), subject to certain conditions, from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

 

Pursuant to the Development Agreement, the Company and Ironstate shall co-develop the URL Harborside Project with Ironstate responsible for obtaining all required development permits and approvals.  Major decisions with respect to the URL Harborside Project will require the consent of the Company and Ironstate.  The Company and Ironstate will have 85 and 15 percent interests, respectively, in the URL Harborside Project.  The Company will receive capital credit of $30 per approved developable square foot for its land aggregating to approximately $20.3 million at December 31, 2013.  In addition to the capital credit it will receive for its land contribution, the Company currently expects that it will fund approximately $84 million of the development costs of the project (which is expected to be reduced to the effects of sales proceeds from the anticipated sale of the URL Tax Credits).

 

The Development Agreement is subject to obtaining required approvals and development financing as well as numerous customary undertakings, covenants, obligations and conditions.  The Company has the right to reasonably determine that any phase of the URL Harborside Project is not economically viable and may elect not to proceed, subject to certain conditions, with no further obligations to Ironstate other than reimbursement to Ironstate of all or a portion of the costs incurred by it to obtain any required approvals.

 

In July 2012, the Company entered into a ground lease with Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. (“Wegmans”) at the Company’s undeveloped site located at Sylvan Way and Ridgedale Avenue in Hanover Township, New Jersey. Subject to receiving all necessary governmental approvals, Wegmans intends to construct a store of approximately 140,000 square feet on a finished pad to be delivered by the Company in the fourth quarter of 2014.  The Company expects to incur costs of approximately $15.7 million for the development of the site through the third quarter of 2015 (of which the Company has incurred $4.3 million through December 31, 2013).