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Lakewood Office Space

Renting Office Space in Lakewood, NJ: A Local Guide

Where Lakewood office space actually sits: the main roads, parking, zoning, and the costs beyond base rent.

Lakewood Township is in northern Ocean County. Offices sit along the central streets, US Route 9, NJ Route 70, NJ Route 88, County Line Road, and Cedar Bridge Avenue. None of those roads is an office-only zone.

The figure on a listing is often base rent only. Utilities, taxes, insurance, and common-area charges may be extra. Whether you can use the suite depends on that lot's zoning, not on the tenant next door.

Listed on this site

These are on the Lakewood listings page today. Availability changes, and this is not every office in town. Confirm a suite with the landlord, and read the address. It may not be downtown.

Roads where offices turn up

Downtown. Main Street, Clifton Avenue, and Madison Avenue. Madison Avenue is US Route 9 through the center of town, and Main Street is the west end of NJ Route 88. Errands are walkable. Parking and weekday traffic are the limit.

Route 9. South of Central Avenue, Route 9 is River Avenue, including Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus at 600 River Avenue. The hospital is a landmark, not a stock of medical offices, and a nearby suite is not automatically a medical office. North of Central Avenue the same road is Madison Avenue.

Route 70. NJ Route 70 crosses Lakewood east to west. Coming north on Route 9, you meet Route 70 and then enter the township on River Avenue.

Route 88. From Madison Avenue it runs through downtown as Main Street, becomes Ocean Avenue toward Brick, and passes under the Garden State Parkway with no exit. You cannot leave the Parkway directly onto Route 88.

County Line Road. County Route 526 runs along the north side of the township, from the Jackson line east across Route 9. It is a western way in, mixed with houses and businesses, not its own office district.

Cedar Bridge Avenue. County Route 528 runs from Hurley Avenue east to the Brick line, through the industrial-park area. Lakewood Airport (N12), at 1900 Cedar Bridge Avenue, is a map pin for that side of town, not a reason to rent unless you use the airport. Suites here often sit next to industrial buildings. A loading door or warehouse bay is a separate ask. This site lists offices, including an office in a flex building, not warehouses or vacant land.

Getting here

Most people drive. The Garden State Parkway passes the east side of town. Once you exit, Route 9, Route 70, and Cedar Bridge Avenue are the connections. Use a current map for the exit. Interstate 195 is west of town, toward the Turnpike and Trenton, and does not enter Lakewood. You finish on Route 9 or County Line Road. The township's travel page lists these roads.

NJ Transit's Lakewood Bus Terminal is at First Street and Lexington Avenue, north of Main Street. The township's Lakewood Shuttle runs an Industrial Park route and a Westgate route. Hours change. Read the shuttle page before you depend on a bus.

Parking

Downtown is the tight spot: services are close, and a weekday morning is not a Sunday evening. Visit at the hour you and your visitors would arrive, and put the answers in the lease.

  • How many spaces come with the suite, and are they reserved or shared first-come?
  • Are they on the same lot, or across a road?
  • Where do visitors park when those spaces are taken?
  • If the lease never mentions parking, you do not have a space.

Do not count on-street spaces as yours. This page names no municipal lot: a project that has been discussed or authorized is not a lot you can park in. Confirm a private space in the lease, downtown and on Route 9 and Cedar Bridge, where a shared front lot can be blocked by a neighbor's deliveries. The township pages below are where to check what the town itself says.

What you pay besides base rent

Ask for the full monthly cost. Gross and full-service leases fold more of the building's costs into the rent. A triple-net (NNN) lease adds a share of taxes, insurance, and maintenance, often called NNN or CAM, and modified gross sits between the two. Landlords do not use those names consistently. Electric, heat, water, cleaning, snow, and internet can fall on either side, and they can rise even when base rent is fixed. A lower base rent can be the higher bill.

Get the current numbers in writing, including how an increase works. A listing on this site shows the lease type the landlord reported. If it says the lease type is not confirmed, do not guess.

Zoning is the parcel, not the road

Only your lot counts. The sketch below is general information, not a zoning decision and not legal advice. The ordinance changes. The Zoning Office can say what applies to the address.

Office Transitional (OT) lists specific professional offices. The published ordinance includes medicine, dentistry, law, accounting, architecture, engineering, and similar professions, plus executive offices where no product is displayed for sale. That is not every business. OT also allows single-family houses that already existed when that rule was adopted. Parking, buffers, and signs are in the ordinance, and an older building may not match what a new project would have to build.

Industrial Park Limited Professional Service (LP) lists professional offices and office buildings, medical practitioners, and corporate or executive offices. It also lists banks, laboratories, hotels, stores, warehouses, manufacturing, and other uses. LP is not an office-only zone. A suite in an industrial park can still be the wrong approval for your use.

Other districts allow some offices, and many do not. The hospital, a Route 9 address, or a former office does not settle it. Look the lot up on the township zoning map, then ask the Zoning Office whether your use is permitted there. Say it in concrete words: an accounting office, a clinic that sees patients, a classroom, a counter that sells to the public. "Office" is too vague. The landlord's signature does not replace township approval, and a renovation can also need a building permit. The township lists the office at 212 4th Street, 732-364-3760, ext. 5601. Check the hours on that page before you go.

The map file was updated in October 2023. Later changes may not be drawn on it. The text is on eCode360. If the map and a staff answer differ, ask which district the lot is in and keep what they tell you.

Questions to settle in the lease

Commercial leases are negotiated. Read SCORE's questions to ask before signing and the state's leasing tips, then read your draft. Settle these before you sign:

  • Utilities and CAM. Who pays electric, heat, water, internet, cleaning, snow, taxes, insurance, and common-area maintenance, what those amounts are now, and what lets them rise.
  • The rooms. Measure the suite. A square-foot total does not say whether the layout fits the work or leaves a place for a visitor to wait.
  • Use. The lease should name what you may do, and the zone has to allow that same thing.
  • Access and build-out. Who pays for tenant improvements, and who pays if people with disabilities cannot use the suite as it is. Ask who pays the rent if a permit is delayed. The state page covers improvement allowances in plain language.
  • The term. Length, renewal, rent increases, a sale of the building, and whether you can sublease, assign, or leave early.
  • Signs and permits. What you may put on the door, the window, or a post out front. Limits differ by district. Get the landlord's permission in the lease, then check the sign rules before you order one.
  • Parking. The questions above, written into the lease.
  • Internet. Who provides it, whether it is in the rent, and what the suite has today.
  • Permitted use, twice. Once in the lease and once with the Zoning Office. Township approval is separate from the landlord's permission.

This site lists space. It does not negotiate the lease or represent either side. For advice on your draft, talk with a New Jersey lawyer.

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