This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
Federal Realty Investment Trust has announced the redevelopment of two neighborhood shopping centers in the Philadelphia suburbs.
The national, retail-focused REIT is in the midst of its second phase of redeveloping the Lawrence Park Shopping Center, anchored by an Acme grocery store and located near Interstate 76 in the Delaware County suburb of Broomall. In addition to a renovation taking place with all tenants remaining open, Federal is building 32K SF of new retail, which will bring the retail square footage of the center up to 374K SF. The redevelopment is expected to cost a total of $30M and be completed by the end of this year.
The Bala Cynwyd Shopping Center is significantly smaller than Lawrence Park at 174K SF, but it is located in a denser suburb that shares a border with Philadelphia. The $8M redevelopment will also take place while all stores remain open, including anchor tenants Acme and Michaels, and is expected to be completed by the summer of next year. Federal is adding expanded outdoor dining and gathering spaces to both centers, and it expects to announce more tenants at both in the coming months.
SALES
Wharton Realty Group has closed on the acquisition of Deptford Landing, a fully leased 517K SF retail power center in the South Jersey suburb of the same name. A sale price for the center, anchored by Walmart and Sam's Club, was not disclosed. A JLL Capital Markets team of Jose Cruz, Chris Munley, Steve Simonelli, J.B. Bruno, Jim Galbally, Colin Behr and Austin Pierce represented the unidentified seller.
***
An affiliate of 1788 Holdings has closed on the sale of Riverside Business Center, a 432K SF multitenant industrial property in the Lehigh Valley town of Whitehall, Pennsylvania, for $34.7M. Michael Hines of CBRE represented 1788 Holdings and helped procure the buyer, Buligo Capital Partners. 1788 acquired Riverside in 2018 for $11.5M at a cap rate of 9% with an initial plan to hold the property for 10 years, before changing course and selling after four years at a cap rate of 5.6%.
LEASES
National Real Estate Development has signed local fitness center chain City Fitness to a 17K SF lease to anchor the retail portion of the multifamily tower it is building in partnership with KRE Group at 200 Spring Garden St. City Fitness currently occupies the one-story building on-site, and will move into a separate building just down the block owned by National and KRE at 460 North Second St., with the 11K SF "semi-permanent" location scheduled to open this month.
***
Ensemble Real Estate Investments has signed construction and project management firm Gilbane Building Co. to a nearly 17K SF office lease at 1200 Intrepid Blvd. within the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Tony Rossi and Richard Levine of CBRE represented Gilbane, which moved into its new space this month from an 11K SF office at the Wanamaker Building in Center City. The 92K SF office building at 1200 Intrepid was developed in 2015 by Liberty Property Trust. Ensemble purchased the property soon after its partnership with Mosaic Development Partners succeeded Liberty as the master developer at the Navy Yard.
FINANCE
Greystone Capital and Black Bear Asset Management have formed a $150M joint venture to invest in multifamily and industrial assets in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley region. BBAM will source investments as part of the JV, with Greystone providing development and property management services for acquisitions in addition to its equity share. The JV has already acquired two multifamily assets worth a total of $39M, one in Bethlehem and the other in Easton.
