This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
One of the leading developers in Northern Delaware has a new leader of its own.
Buccini/Pollin Group hired Ann Visalli as its new chief operating officer, plucking her from Episcopal college prep academy St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, where she held the same title. Visalli will oversee finances and budgets for all of BPG's operating entities.
Visalli will also directly supervise several departments, including human resources and information technology. In conjunction with BPG's asset management department, Visalli will also oversee the company's commercial and residential operations as well as its leasing departments.
Before St. Andrew's, Visalli worked in Delaware's state government for years, most recently as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Gov. John Carney's predecessor, Jack Markell.
PROGRAM LAUNCHES
The Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. launched the Rental Improvement Fund on Wednesday, opening applications for landlords who own no more than five rental properties and no more than 15 total rental units.
RIF loans come in two forms: a 10-year, $25K loan with no principal payments that is forgivable if the loan terms are met and a 15-year, $50K, no-interest loan. In order for a rental property to qualify, it must be affordable for households making 60% or less of the area median income.
Participating landlords must cap rent increases at 3% per year over the loan's term. Failure to adhere to the program's conditions means that a loan must be repaid with 4% interest. The RIF is partially funded by the state-level Whole Home Repairs program and the city's Neighborhood Preservation Initiative.
***
Jumpstart Philly, a training and accelerator organization for small and early stage development companies founded by Philly Office Retail CEO Ken Weinstein, landed a $7M funding infusion that will allow it to expand its loan program to include all of Philadelphia.
After starting in Germantown in 2015, the Jumpstart Program began offering loans in other ZIP codes where it had training locations in 2019. It has made 384 loans worth a combined $46M to date. With funding from the city's Reinvestment Fund, TriState Capital Bank and Local Initiatives Support Corp., Jumpstart will add over 25 ZIP codes to encompass the whole of Philly.
LEASING
PREIT will cut the ribbon on a new Uniqlo location at Cherry Hill Mall on Friday. The 8,200 SF store will be the Japanese brand's first in South Jersey and third in the Philadelphia area, joining locations at the King of Prussia Mall and on Chestnut Street in Center City.
***
Paramount Realty signed agricultural feed manufacturer The Wenger Group to a 15-year lease for the entirety of a 53K SF industrial/flex building at 3050 Hempland Road in Lancaster. The property also has frontage on U.S. Route 30.
JLL Managing Director Scott Williams represented Paramount in leasing the former Lancaster campus for vocational college York Technical Institute. Paramount will redevelop the property into a modern office and flex industrial building to serve as Wenger's headquarters and manufacturing facility, with completion scheduled for next year.
***
ShopOne Centers REIT signed Five Below to a 9K SF lease at a former Tuesday Morning box in Southampton Shopping Center. The Philly-based discount retailer plans to open before the end of the year.
The 151K SF Southampton Shopping Center is anchored by a Giant grocery store and sits at 466 Second Street Pike in Southampton, just across Philadelphia's northeast border. ShopOne lists seven remaining storefronts available for lease totaling over 15K SF.
SALES
Local investor Penn Property Partners acquired a 114-bed, scattered-site student housing portfolio in the Temple University area for $5M in a transaction brokered by Scope Commercial Real Estate Services Director Jonathan Massaro and senior associate Zeke Rotter.
Seller TempleTown Realty had owned the portfolio, which consists of eight buildings totaling about 56K SF, since 1996. Two of the properties, which have addresses on Park Avenue, Broad, 15th and 16th streets, have ground-floor retail.
