Hundreds Of Apartments, Hotel And Retail Could Fill Former Prudential Site In Upper Dublin
Out with offices and in with upscale apartments, shopping and a 100-key hotel for a former Prudential campus in the Philly suburbs.
That's the hope, anyway, for Michael Markman, whose BET Investments has proposed what he is calling a “legacy project” near the existing Promenade at Upper Dublin, located about 45 minutes north of Philadelphia.
BET plans to build an entire community, including hundreds of apartments, townhomes and a hotel, on the Prudential site at 2101 Welsh Road, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The Newark, New Jersey-based insurer left those offices last year. Now the 90-acre site is ripe for redevelopment, Markman said.
“The way we’re looking at this is it’s such an opportunity to build our legacy project,” Markman, president of BET Investments, told the PBJ.
The project would include 600 apartment units split among three buildings with a parking garage underneath, 150 units for senior or assisted living, 160 stacked-style townhomes and a 100-room hotel. On another part of the property, the firm would add 106K SF for stores or restaurants, 100K SF for medical or office space, and a police substation and on-site walking trails.
BET went before the town’s Planning Commission last month, seeking approval for a zoning change to add senior housing and the hotel option. The existing office property hosts three connected buildings totaling 861K SF, along with 2,175 on-site parking spaces.
Although the zoning change could take four months to be approved, Markman plans to begin demolition of the site within two weeks. Construction would begin in 2025, and the development could be done within 10 years, he said.
BET Investments' nearby headquarters at the Montgomery Corporate Center gives the company an advantage amid the development process, Markman told the PBJ.
“Because we are here and it’s where my office is, we put much, much more thought into it than we have in a lot of other occasions,” he said. “It puts us in a situation where we can make one of the most interesting projects that’s ever been built in the Philadelphia suburbs.”
The townhomes would feature two-floor units on the west side of the property, near Toll Brothers’ single-family development known as Enclave at The Promenade. The firm would also build the senior housing development near the site.
The apartments would average $2,500 per month for studios to three-bedroom units and would include indoor and outdoor pools, office space, podcast rooms and a large fitness center.
Those units will be “just really best-in-class apartments in the suburbs of Philadelphia,” Markman said.
Retail would be built on the eastern edge of the property, along Welsh Road. Plans call for preleasing before building, creating custom retail space for each tenant. The largest spaces would be limited to around 30K SF, rather than hosting big-box retail like its neighbors at the Promenade.
Markman touted the development as a good business opportunity and good for the community.
But the plan isn't yet set in stone, as the Planning Commission has voiced concerns over increased traffic along Welsh, Dreshertown and Blair Mill roads. In addition, area municipalities are planning a potential Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange along the property at Welsh Road.
