Brandywine will upgrade 1900 Market
Offices, not apartments, for ex-Cozen space
Brandywine will upgrade 1900 Market
Joseph N. DiStefano
Brandywine Realty Trust, Radnor, says it will redevelop 1900 Market Street, which houses Nasdaq's Philadelphia Stock Exchange operations and investment and law firm offices, "as a Class A office building."
Brandywine says it is committed to offices at 1900. "The redevelopment program will commence in early 2013 and be completed by 2015," Brandywine said in a statement today.
Brandywine paid $34.8 million to buy the 457,000 sq ft building in 2011. Last summer its lead tenant, the politically connected law firm Cozen O'Connor, announced plans to vacate 200,000 sq ft. But, given the sale price of $76 sq ft, "the building's existing tenant base, current below-market leases and purchase price will provide an attractive yield," the landlord predicts.
Given the lack of big office tenants in Philadelphia over the last 20 years -- a lack echoed by GlaxoSmithKline's move today from the last of its former 800,000 sq ft complex near 16th and Vine into 200,000 sq ft down at the old Navy Yard -- Cozen's departure fed speculation that 1900 Market, with an open atrium at its center and Nasdaq's remaining local offices in the basement, could be turned into high-end apartments and expanded, echoing developer Ron Caplan's plans for the vacant nearby AAA building, or the Brandywine-Independence Blue Cross plan for the vacant lot at 1919 Market.
But Brandywine and other landlords have also said the "Class A" offices nearby, including One Liberty Place, the former Verizon and Mellon towers, and the Comcast building, are successfully attracting tenants.
Separately, Brandywine says it has agreed to sell Princeton Pike Corporate Center, an eight-building/800,000 sq ft office center in Lawrenceville, NJ, to an unnamed buyer for $121 million, or $151/sq ft, to close within 30 days.
City Council is just taxing Philadephia out of the business world. Leadership here is so poor. There is no vision. Look at Chestnut Street. Do we really need more Wendy's and Dollar Stores?— StevenG- Add drug store chains to that list of things Chestnut Street doesn't need more of.— The_Unknown-Poster
- The PHLX is a dump!— Dunsmore
- Better to renovate and give new life to this building than to let it go down in the dumps as a place nobody wants to work in. Plus construction and other jobs are created in such configuration. Be positive about this folks!— Aces high
- Where the hell do all the people buying up apartments in Center City work, anyway? All the jobs are in King of Prussia.— dartvader
- Ummm, no. Read the data. Center City is the engine driving the region. And all the traffic in the morning is people commuting INTO Philadelphia to work. Haven't you noticed that? Don't you listen to the traffic reports?
That's why people are moving into the city--close to their jobs and great restaurants, arts, and entertainment.— Tatt2 - Ummm, no. Read the data. Center City is the engine driving the region. And all the traffic in the morning is people commuting INTO Philadelphia to work. Haven't you noticed that? Don't you listen to the traffic reports?That's why people are moving into the city--close to their jobs and great restaurants, arts, and entertainment. (HTML deleted) — Tatt2
- we laugh, thinking that people still have to drive to their jobs in the 21st century. — nolibsphilly
