This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet
Post Brothers has secured two construction loans for its newest multifamily development in the Poplar neighborhood of Philadelphia, despite the difficulty the current economy presents to securing financing.
Post Brothers has secured a senior loan worth $53.8M from Bank OZK and an $18.5M mezzanine loan from Fisher Brothers affiliate Lionheart Strategic Management to fund the construction of its two-building The Darien project, which broke ground in mid-November.
Each half of the Darien will be five stories tall, with a 152-unit building at 900 North Darien St. and a 60-unit building at 900 North Eighth St. Each is planned to contain a ground-floor commercial space.
PEOPLE
Workspace Property Trust, one of the largest owners of suburban office space in the U.S., has hired Stephan Pahides as senior vice president and the company's first general counsel. Pahides had most recently served as a partner at Devon, Pennsylvania-based law firm McCausland Keen + Buckman for 25 years, where his practice focused on real estate.
The privately owned WPT has offices in Horsham and the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern, but now lists its headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida.
SALES
Riverwards Group has sold an 82-unit apartment building it completed last year in South Kensington for $25M to an unnamed family wealth office based in New York. Local brokerage Rittenhouse Realty Advisors represented Riverwards in the transaction.
The property at the corner of North Fifth Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, called Avenue V, is adjacent to an empty lot that Riverwards still controls. Aided by the funds raised from the sale and a $32M construction loan from WSFS Bank closed last week, Riverwards will now proceed with a 200-unit development on the site.
A handful of blocks away on the northern edge of Northern Liberties, RRA represented another local developer in selling an apartment building — this one the Becker Building, an adaptive reuse of a former industrial building at 1151-61 North Third St. with 47 units. A different New York family office purchased the property for $12.7M.
LEASES
Four new tenants have opened their doors at the Suburban Square shopping center in Ardmore, owned by publicly traded, retail-focused REIT Kimco Realty. Three of them — Addison Bay, Faherty and Veronica Beard — are apparel retailers, while the fourth is a café, bakery and event space with the stylized name maman.
In 2023, at least three more tenants will open in Suburban Square: home furnishings store Design Within Reach, digitally native custom apparel maker Custom Ink and women's clothing brand Jenni Kayne.
