This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
An undisclosed investor has paid $220M to acquire The St. James, a 45-story, 304-unit apartment building overlooking Washington Square in the Old City neighborhood.
While it pales in comparison to Presidential City's record $357M price tag, the per-unit price of $724K is well over twice what KKR paid on a per-unit basis for the 1,000-unit Presidential City.
New York-based Clarion Partners sold the property to the investor, which was backed by a group of foreign investors making use of the EB-5 visa program, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. Clarion was represented by JLL in the sale. The St. James is managed by Jenkintown-based The Scully Co., which wasn't involved in the sale, a representative for the company told Bisnow.
SALES
The Scully Co. has purchased The Sansom, an eight-story, 104-unit apartment building in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, from New York-based Pantzer Properties for an undisclosed price. The 89K SF building contains 9,900 SF of ground-floor retail split between a salon and two restaurants operated by local powerhouse CookNSolo. Newmark arranged both the sale and acquisition financing for Scully Co.
Located at 1605 Sansom St., The Sansom was developed in 2013 by Pearl Properties and sold to Pantzer for $42M a year later, PBJ reports.
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Alterra Property Group's industrial outdoor storage subsidiary acquired a 14-property portfolio of IOS properties for over $86M in a sale-leaseback transaction. Third-party logistics provider Heniff Transportation Systems was the seller and will remain the occupant at the sites, which are spread across eight states.
Alterra IOS Manager, the subsidiary through which Alterra acquires such properties, is funded by private equity investments, most recently a $524M fund formed in partnership with New York's Park Madison Partners.
LEASES
Velocity Venture Partners, one of the most active owners of industrial space in the Philly area in the back half of the year, has signed five leases to take a 38K SF warehouse in Pennsauken, New Jersey, from vacant to fully leased. A leasing team from Colliers secured Contract Callers, Pearwood Brands, Frontline Automation, Liberty Manufacturing and National Rug Cleaners.
Velocity purchased the building in 2020 when it was fully occupied by a single tenant, which departed at the beginning of the year. The Bala Cynwyd-based company undertook renovations to modernize the building and transition it from single-tenant to multitenant use.
FINANCING
Gattuso Development Partners and its New York-based partner Vigilant Holdings have secured a $290M loan to fund the construction of a 532K SF life sciences building at 3201 Cuthbert St. in University City. The loan was provided by Corebridge Financial and arranged by JLL. Equity partner The Baupost Group, a Boston hedge fund, increased its investment to help get the deal done.
Split between 520K SF of lab uses and 12K SF of ground-floor retail, the 11-story building, which has an alternate address of 3200 Arch St., is 45% pre-leased, with laboratory-as-a-service operator SmartLabs as the anchor tenant. Drexel University, which owns the land that Gattuso and Vigilant will develop on a 99-year ground lease, will also lease 60K SF of the building for its core research and business development programs.
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Parkway Corp. has secured a construction loan from Prudential Financial to build a $430M office tower for insurance giant Chubb at 2000 Arch St. Chubb will occupy the entire 18-story building, which is scheduled to break ground in January and deliver in 2026. Bellwether Enterprise arranged the construction loan for Parkway.
The parking lot operator and developer also secured a $10M Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
