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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Campus Apartments' high-rise plans keep Philly working

 

One of the few construction cranes currently poking above Philadelphia rises at 4109 Walnut St., where  Campus Apartments, which manages 32,000 student “beds” in private housing at colleges across the U.S., has put contractor L.F. Driscoll to work building the landlord’s first hotel, a 136-room Homewood Suites, to be run by Philadelphia-based Hersha Management.
Based just down the block from the hotel site and still a major landlord for students at the University of Pennsylvania, where it got its start, Campus Apartments turns 50 years old this year.
Founder Alan Horwitz is chairman; David J. Adelman, who grew up around the corner from Horwitz in Wynnefield, at the other edge of West Philly, is chief executive and a driving force in the company’s ongoing diversification, which includes a proposal for more than 100 apartments elsewhere on the hotel block.
The partners also plan two 20-story towers in the 4100 block of Chestnut St., whose owner, Graphic Arts Inc., recently relocated to Kensington after merging with Smith-Edwards-Dunlap Co.; with further proposals for properites north to Market Street. And they’re preparing to build a dorm for St. Joseph’s University on City Line Ave., which is also in expansion mode.
The company also manages Campus Technologies, which connects student buildings to Internet and video services for students, notorious bandwidth hogs.
Campus built 24 luxury condos (one sold for $1 million, a West Philly record) on the site of a former nursing home in the 4200 block of Pine St. The firm had plans to add office buildings to absorb rising rents for university and medical-related space in University City when the real estate financing market collapsed in 2007. Apartments are still relatively easy to finance thanks to Fannie Mae “multifamily” lending programs, Adelman told me.
A partner with FB Capital Partners boss Michael Foreman in the nascent Franklin Square investment fund group, Adelman says he’s trying to lure venture capitalists from West Conshohocken and the Main Line into University City, where the neighbors include Ira Lubert and his Independence funds group, which manage $12 billion for clients including Pennsylvania state pension funds from offices at Cira Center.

One of the few construction cranes currently poking above Philadelphia rises at 4109 Walnut St., where  Campus Apartments, which manages 32,000 student “beds” in private housing at colleges across the U.S., has put contractor L.F. Driscoll to work building the landlord’s first hotel, a 136-room Homewood Suites, to be run by Philadelphia-based Hersha Management.

Based just down the block from the hotel site and still a major landlord for students at the University of Pennsylvania, where it got its start, Campus Apartments turns 50 years old this year.

Founder Alan Horwitz is chairman; David J. Adelman is chief executive and a driving force in the company’s ongoing diversification, which includes a proposal for more than 100 apartments elsewhere on the hotel block.

The partners also plan two 20-story towers in the 4100 block of Chestnut St., whose owner, Graphic Arts Inc., recently relocated to Kensington after merging with Smith-Edwards-Dunlap Co. And they’re preparing to build a dorm for St. Joseph’s University on City Line Ave., which is also in expansion mode.

The company also manages Campus Technologies, which connects student buildings to Internet and video services for students, notorious bandwidth hogs.

Campus built 24 luxury condos (one sold for $1 million, a West Philly record) on the site of a former nursing home in the 4200 block of Pine St. The firm had plans to add office buildings to absorb rising rents for university and medical-related space in University City, where rents reached into the $30s a square foot, above Center City levels, when the real estate financing market collapsed in 2007.

Apartment builidings are still relatively easy to finance thanks to Fannie Mae “multifamily” lending programs, Adelman told me.

A partner with FB Capital Partners boss Michael Forman in the nascent Franklin Square Capital Partners investment fund group, Adelman says he still hopes to expand UCity's office network. As tenants, he’s trying to lure venture capitalists from West Conshohocken and the Main Line into University City, where the neighbors include Ira Lubert and his Independence funds group, which manage $12 billion for clients including Pennsylvania state pension funds from offices at Cira Center. "Penn should be like Cambridge or Palo Alto," a lure to capital as well as academe, he told me.
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 4:07 PM  Permalink | 1 comment
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  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 10:26 AM, 09/06/2011
    There is also another early stage venture funder, Robin Hood Ventures, located in the Science Center!
    — robweber


1 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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