New York firms buy rest of Strawbridge's building office floors

Cohen Equities and Taconic Capital of New York have purchased floors three through six of the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store, consolidating its ownership of the office portion of the 801 Market St. building following its acquisition last year of floors seven through 13.

Cohen and Taconic purchased the lower four-floor unit of offices, encompassing 312,000 square feet of space, from Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust of Philadelphia and Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich, the New York firms said in a statement Tuesday.

The sale price for the four-floor section of the building appears to have been $61.5 million, based on PREIT's disclosure in a separate release Tuesday that its proceeds from the sale of the property, held in a 50-50 joint venture with Macerich, were $30.75 million.

An affiliate of Cohen and Taconic paid $32 million for the upper-seven-floor unit of the 1930s building, containing 382,800 square feet of offices, in November from debt servicer LNR Partners LLC, which had taken control of them after the default of an earlier owner. The seven stories had large amounts of vacant space when they were acquired by the investment firms, which continue to seek tenants for areas remaining empty, including a full floor of offices.

Tenants of the newly acquired floors, which are fully leased, include the parent company of the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, as well as local offices of the state Department of Labor and Industry.

PREIT and Macerich retained the building's lower two stories and below-ground space for integration into their Fashion District Philadelphia retail development spanning the three blocks of the former Gallery at Market East shopping mall.