Chinatown is getting a new affordable housing development, a piece of good news for advocates who fear for the neighborhood's future.
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Pennrose and Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. on Monday broke ground on 800 Vine Senior, a 51-unit apartment building restricted to seniors. Six of the units will be income-restricted at 20% of the area median income, 20 of the units will be restricted at 50% AMI and 25 will be capped at 60% AMI. Ten of the units were designed for residents with physical disabilities and hearing and vision impairments.
Pennrose and PCDC financed 800 Vine Senior with permanent and subordinate loans from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, a state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant and a 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit investment by Wells Fargo.
The project, which is being built on a former surface parking lot at 800 Vine St. sold to the developers by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, is scheduled to deliver next summer.
LEASING
Energy distribution company UGI Corp. signed a sublease for the entirety of 500 North Gulph Road, a 101K SF office building in the King of Prussia submarket owned by Brandywine Realty Trust, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. UGI will relocate down the block from its former home at 460 North Gulph Road, a 97K SF building it owns. It hasn't disclosed any future plans for the building.
Brandywine redeveloped 500 North Gulph in 2019 and leased it to biopharmaceutical company CSL Behring, which put it up for sublease after the pandemic caused a rethink of its office usage, PBJ reports.
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Medicaid care management firm AmeriHealth Caritas has signed a lease for all of a five-story, 106K SF office building under construction at Equus Capital Partners' Ellis Preserve development in Newtown Square, PBJ reports.
Equus began developing the mass timber building at 203 Squire Drive, for which IMC Construction is the general contractor, on spec, PBJ reports. Less than a mile away but separate from Ellis Preserve, Equus developed AmeriHealth's five-story, 378K SF headquarters as a build-to-suit in late 2020.
SALES
Last-mile warehouse investor Faropoint acquired a 119K SF warehouse in the Gloucester County township of Swedesboro, New Jersey, from Newvine Corp., a subsidiary of Arthur H. Thomas Co., for $13M. A CBRE investment properties team of Stephen Marzullo and Adam Silverman brokered the transaction.
Thomas Scientific, a separate A.H. Thomas subsidiary, has used the building at 1654 High Hill Road as its headquarters and main distribution center for 40 years. It signed a new long-term lease to remain in place.
OPENINGS
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The Philadelphia Inquirer held the grand opening of its new 37K SF headquarters on the sixth floor of historic office building 100 Independence on Monday. Keystone owns the historically protected 400K SF property at 100 South Independence Mall W, which counts Macquarie as its anchor tenant.
Meyer designed the Inquirer's new office to suit the news organization's hybrid work structure. The Inquirer employs around 400 people, and the office can fit 200 workers each day. No employee will have a dedicated desk, and individual departments will organize their own schedules.
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A 120-year-old hotel building at 1208 Walnut St. will reopen next week as Red Lion Inn & Suites, a brand under the Sonesta International Hotels Corp. umbrella, PBJ reports. The historically protected building was operating under the Rodeway Inn banner until the pandemic, when it closed and began serving as an isolation and quarantine site for patients with Covid-19.
A fire in late 2020 rendered the building unsafe to occupy, but owner Millennium Hotel Group LLC repaired it before leasing the 45-room hotel to Sonesta franchisee Chandrakant Shah, PBJ reports.
