Change in Plans for Massive Northern Liberties Office Space

An artist rendering for SoNo, a large, horizontal office space in Northern Liberties.

It was supposed to be hip, modern office space on a grand scale. The massive Destination Maternity building that’s 220,000 square feet and spans an entire city block on Spring Garden Street in Northern Liberties was set to undergo a $60 million transformation, giving it the potential to lure in a regional office for Google, Twitter or another national tech company. The excitement from the Philly tech community was palpable.

In fact, building owners Alliance Partners HSP toured the West Coast offices for Airbnb, Pixar, Salesforce and Twitter to help them find inspiration. One large, national company even took a tour of the space, but eventually passed.

So far, no tenants have signed on to the project and on Wednesday, Alliance Partners HSP announced that it’s now exploring a mixed-use of residential, retail and office space. Most of the potential tenants were looking for just 10,000 to 30,000 square feet of space but were concerned about the lack of amenities in the immediate area.

“The tenants want it to be more of a destination. They want amenities. The closer your amenities are and the more of a destination it is — the more attractive it is,” said Rich Previdi, a principal with Alliance Partners HSP. “The ultimate big plus is that it allows us to cut the scale of it, which makes it more doable.”

That coincides with a zoning change for the neighborhood, aiming to bring more residential and retail space to the otherwise industrial area between 2nd and 6th Streets and Spring Garden and Callowhill Streets. Now, Alliance Partners HSP has more options and flexibility.

As for a big, national tech tenant, Previdi said “those opportunities are out there, but they’re just dipping their toes in the water right now.”

Alliance Partners HSP isn’t saying the full office concept is dead. If the right tenants came along they would still build out the project as originally planned. But given the tenant feedback and new zoning, it’s going to explore going in another direction.

As of now, the company has no plans for exactly what the retail or residential spaces will look like. They said they’ll have more information around February.