This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
Grocery-anchored shopping centers continue to be among the most sought-after asset classes, both in Philadelphia and across the country.
Lower Makefield Shopping Center, a 76K SF neighborhood center anchored by a Giant grocery store in the Bucks County township of Yardley, Pennsylvania, has been acquired by Inland Real Estate Income Trust as part of an eight-property portfolio of similar centers totaling 687K SF. Inland paid $278M for the portfolio, which also includes centers in the suburbs of Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Detroit and Washington, D.C.
A JLL Capital Markets team led by Managing Director Bill Moylan and co-head of U.S. Retail Capital Markets Chris Angelone represented the seller, the identity of which was not disclosed. The last publicly recorded sale of the property was in 2017, when CBRE disclosed that it had procured Inland Institutional Capital as a buyer. Inland Institutional and Inland Real Estate Income Trust are separate member companies of the Inland Group.
Reonomy data shows that Inland Real Estate Income Trust's purchase of Lower Makefield Shopping Center closed in May for a price of $20.5M, only $100K more than the price Inland Institutional paid an affiliate of Trigate Capital to acquire the center in 2017.
CONSTRUCTION
Rebuild Philadelphia, the ongoing revamp of public parks and recreation centers across the city that represents one of Mayor Jim Kenney's signature initiatives, broke ground on Wednesday on its latest project, a $20M redevelopment of Vare Playground in the Grays Ferry neighborhood. The project, which counts the Philadelphia Eagles and a charitable organization founded by former Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin as partners, will include a 19K SF recreation center, a turf athletic field, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, playgrounds and a public art installation.
SALES
Local investment firm Endurance Real Estate Group has sold a three-building office campus in the Philly suburb of Blue Bell to an unidentified buyer for $12.7M. The campus, which contains two 55K SF, two-story buildings and one 21K SF, one-story building, was 65% occupied at the time of the sale.
Endurance purchased the 130K SF property in 2013 for $4.1M, according to Reonomy data, and was represented by a Newmark team led by Executive Managing Director James Dugan in its sale of the property. With the sale completed, Endurance now only lists industrial properties in the Greater Philadelphia market among its current portfolio.
LEASING
Boyds, the last surviving remnant of the golden age of department stores in Philadelphia, is opening its first permanent suburban location after over 80 years of operation out of one Center City store, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. Boyds had launched a pop-up outpost at the Suburban Square development in Ardmore in 2020 to add a revenue stream as the pandemic emptied out the streets of Center City, and its surprising level of success prompted the family-owned company to sign a lease at the 11K SF former flagship store of Anthropologie in the Main Line suburb of Wayne, which has been vacant since 2018.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer is moving offices again, months after its longtime home at 401 North Broad St. reopened as the new headquarters of the Philadelphia Police Department. Philly's paper of record has signed a lease for a 37K SF office on the sixth floor of 100 Independence Mall West, owned by Keystone Development + Investment. The Inquirer has operated out of the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store at 801 Market St. since 2012, and it plans to occupy its new headquarters beginning early next year.
