This Week's Philadelphia Deal Sheet

South Jersey developer Nexus Properties has secured permanent financing for its newly built multifamily community in its home market.

Nexus secured a $73M permanent loan backed by The Villages at Berlin, a 472-unit complex in the Camden County township of the same name, from an unnamed life insurance company. John Taylor and Donna Falzarano of M&T Realty Capital arranged the financing to replace a construction loan provided by M&T Bank.

The Villages at Berlin is made up of a series of three-story buildings that were developed in three phases. The permanent financing carries a fixed interest rate and comes with an initial five-year period of interest-only payments.

PEOPLE

JLL Capital Markets has hired Danté Thomas to be a managing director at its affordable housing production team in Philadelphia. Thomas was hired away from Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, where he most recently served as vice president of product originations. Earlier in his career, Thomas held positions in Fannie Mae's multifamily mortgage operation and at the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency.

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Savills has hired Kathryn Martinez to serve as senior director at Macro, a project management consulting firm it acquired in March 2020 and runs as a subsidiary. Martinez will be based in Philadelphia and focus on the Northeast but also assist on projects nationwide. She comes to Macro from engineering and design firm DEDC, where she served as director of engineering and worked on projects, including the core and shell of Morgan Lewis' soon-to-be-completed headquarters, developed by Parkway Corp., at 2222 Market St.

SALES

Local developer Orens Brothers Real Estate has sold a neighborhood shopping center it developed in 2014 at 701 West Lehigh Ave. for $9.5M. Edison Square is a 30K SF center anchored by discount grocer Save A Lot and Family Dollar. Derrick Dougherty, part of the Marcus & Millichap team that marketed the property for Orens Brothers, said in a statement that Edison Square is home to the state's top-performing locations for Save A Lot, Family Dollar and haircutting chain Snipes. The buyer is an anonymous LLC with its listed address in Allentown.

LEASING

Starbucks has opened a new location in the Philadelphia suburbs just as a lease it signed for a tiny future location in the heart of Center City became public. On Monday, the coffee giant held a grand opening for a full-service location with a drive-thru at 551 West Lancaster Ave. in the Main Line town of Haverford.

Developer Haverford Properties acquired the 30K SF office building at 551 West Lancaster in 2018, and when the anchor tenant went out of business during the pandemic, Haverford moved its headquarters into the building. The company signed Starbucks to a 10-year lease at a space formerly occupied by Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union.