Morning Headlines: Center City Saw $1 Billion in Retail and Office Space Deals Last Year
Photo credit: Dominic Lacivita via Flickr.
This past year appears to have been a kind one for commercial real estate investors in Center City. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Natalie Kostelni, 2014 saw $1 billion in commercial real estate traded, not including Comcast’s $505 million stake in the Comcast Center. This is up from $700 million in 2013 and $96 million in 2012.
Kostelni reports two factors came into play for this to happen: property owners who “decided to seize on the interest in commercial real estate” and domestic institutions that “have turned their investment attention to cities such as Philadelphia” because they’re “unable to compete with the onslaught of international capital flooding primary gateway cities, such as New York and Washington D.C.”
Retail in particular saw a successful year. From PBJ:
Retail space has become a hot commodity and has recorded some of the biggest deals on a per square foot basis. For example, the 19,963-square-foot space at 1801 Walnut St. where Anthropologie occupies space, sold for $1,528 a square foot, and 1705 Walnut St., which totals 6,138 square feet, traded for $815 a square foot.
Among some of the top office space sales were 1835 Market (sold for $100 million) and 1515 Market ($85 million).
• $1B in real estate transactions for Center City in 2014 [Business Journal]
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