This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
Prominent local developer Post Brothers has sold a student housing property in the shadow of the University of Pennsylvania for what its broker is calling a record per-unit sum.
An undisclosed buyer paid $87M, or $800K per unit, for the 105-unit, 291-bed Hamilton Court at 3816-3836 Chestnut St., brought to market on behalf of Post Brothers by Rittenhouse Realty Advisors, a member of Global Real Estate Advisors.
Post Brothers acquired Hamilton Court in 2015 and subsequently renovated the property for $21M. That included the ground-up construction of an amenity center recognized by local architecture critic Inga Saffron, which has a roof deck with a pool and hot tub surrounded by the original brick apartment building on three sides. Hamilton Court also contains 21K SF of ground-floor retail along Chestnut Street.
LEASING
MRA Group has secured a 26K SF lease at Spring House Innovation Park, its multiyear redevelopment of the former Rohm & Haas research and development campus in the Montgomery County suburb of Spring House. FlowMetric, a contract resource organization that provides flow cytometry and cellular assay services to clients in research, was represented by Newmark Managing Director Justin Bell. MRA serves as property manager and co-owner as part of a joint venture with Beacon Capital Partners, the majority equity partner.
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Greystone has secured an international restaurant tenant for part of its retail offerings at Jessup Place, the multifamily giant's first ground-up project in Philadelphia. Chotto Matte, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant concept that first launched in London, is set to open in the third quarter of 2023. It would be the restaurant's fourth U.S. location after Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The 20-story, nearly 400-unit apartment building broke ground at 12th and Sansom streets in the Gayborhood subsection of Center City last summer. The last unleased portion of the 11K SF ground-floor retail portion is a 1.2K SF space that opens into the residential lobby and is being marketed to coffee shop tenants.
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Developer Court Street Ventures held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for a new-construction, speculative distribution center much closer to Philadelphia's population center than the bulk of new industrial development happening in Northeast Philadelphia. The 381K SF warehouse is already under construction and expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Court Street plans to eventually deliver 650K SF of industrial space, a mixture of new construction and redevelopment, with 3.5 acres dedicated to parking, at a 19-acre site two blocks away from St. Christopher's Children's Hospital in the Harrowgate neighborhood, north of Kensington. Court Street partnered with Walton Street Capital to finance the project, which will be marketed for leasing by a Colliers team.
CONSTRUCTION
Ensemble/Mosaic will hold a private ceremony on Thursday to celebrate the placement of the final steel beam at 1201 Normandy Place, the partnership's first ground-up project at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. With the placement, the joint venture of Ensemble Real Estate Investments and Mosaic Development Partners will complete the basic structural component of the speculative, multitenant lab and R&D building.
Ensemble/Mosaic's next phase of its master plan at the Navy Yard is set to be a Current Good Manufacturing Practices facility, which it also plans to launch speculatively with financial backing from equity partner Oxford Properties Group.
SALES
Riverwards Group, a local development firm led by Mo Rushdy and focused on Northern Liberties, Fishtown, Kensington and Port Richmond, has sold an apartment building it developed at 2035 East Lehigh Ave. in Kensington for $21M, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. New York-based Ecorise Development purchased the 80% leased, 75-unit property, and Ryan McManus of Compass Commercial brokered the transaction.
Kensington Courts Flats, part of a Riverwards Group development near the intersection of Frankford and Lehigh avenues that also includes for-sale townhomes, rents for an average of $1,830 per unit, or $2 per SF.
