This Week’s Philadelphia Deal Sheet
MM Partners has purchased the seven-story location that once housed Peirce College.
The development group plans to convert the former location of the college at 420-34 Pine St. into apartments, part of its converted classroom-to-residential portfolio in the area.
The building will undergo between $45M and $50M of reconstruction, MM Partners Managing Partner David Waxman told the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Peirce College, a private institution, downsized and left the location after converting most classes to online sessions. The school relocated to 1608 Walnut St. in 2023.
The former Peirce building totals 64K SF and includes offices, classrooms and meeting space. The property also includes five townhomes totaling 29K SF and a four-car garage. The building spans from South Carlisle and South 15th streets north to south and between Pine and Waverly streets east to west.
The building is on the opposite side of 15th Street from another project owned by MM Partners, the former location of The University of the Arts. That 45K SF building will be converted into about 64 apartment units.
PEOPLE
Independence Realty Trust appointed the former CEO of National Retail Properties Inc. to its board of directors.
The REIT firm named Craig Macnab to its board effective Feb. 29, according to a press release from the company.
Macnab will become the 10th member of the board, which also includes eight independent directors. Macnab also sits on the boards of VICI Properties and American Tower Corp.
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SCOPE Capital Group has announced that Chris Bickel and Brett Walther have joined the firm’s Philadelphia office as senior director and vice president, respectively.
Bickel joins SCOPE from PrimeSpace Capital, according to LinkedIn. He also was a former senior vice president for Centric Bank. Bickel opened and led Centric Bank’s top-producing loan production office in Devon, Pennsylvania.
Walther joined from First Commonwealth Bank, where he was a vice president of commercial banking, per LinkedIn.
Their new SCOPE responsibilities include finding and securing financing for all commercial asset classes and bolstering the firm’s debt and structured finance services in the region.
LEASES
Home equipment company Aramsco leased 117K SF of industrial space at Logan North, a Greek Real Estate Partners and Advance Realty Investors development at 301 Crossroads Boulevard in Logan Township, New Jersey. The lease brings the development to 75% occupied.
Advance Realty and Greek Real Estate Partners were represented by JLL’s Dean Torosian and Nate Demetsky. Aramsco was represented by Icon Commercial’s Ryan Bowie and Flynn Cos.’ Colin Flynn, David Ricci and Brando Casalicchio.
SALES
Marcus & Millichap has completed the sale of the Parkway Shopping Center in Allentown for $12.5M.
The 133K SF shopping center property at 1471 Lehigh St. was sold to an unnamed buyer.
“Thanks to previous ownership, an admirable repositioning of the asset was achieved over the course of the last five years,” Colin Reder, an associate at Marcus & Millichap, said in a press announcement. “Tenants were consolidated to only those that added value, more than $2 million was invested in capital improvements and a medical component was added to compliment the current retail tenancy.”
Reder and Marcus & Millichap Philadelphia office specialists Derrick Dougherty and Scott Woodward had the exclusive listing to market the property and procured the unnamed buyer.
Neil Campbell and Ian Nordfors of IPA Capital Markets handled the debt financing for the buyer.
DEVELOPMENT
City permits have been issued for the construction of a new mixed-use building at 1628 Ridge Ave. in the Francisville section of North Philadelphia.
Designblendz will construct an 8.5K, four-story building with space for commercial tenants on its ground floor. The building will include seven residential units.
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Meyer Design has completed the renovation of the Bala Consulting Engineers headquarters in Wayne. The 21.5K SF office at 1285 Drummers Lane now has amenities, including a flexible-room cafe that converts to training or conference space as needed. Other features include video conferencing cameras, a room reservation system, mobile audio-visual capabilities and conference room occupancy sensors.
FINANCING
JLL has arranged a $55M bridge loan for Quartermaster Plaza, a shopping center in South Philadelphia.
Michael Gigliotti, James Galbally, Michael Pagniucci and Blaine Fleming of JLL arranged a five-year loan through an undisclosed bank for the 456K SF property.
Located at West Oregon Ave and South 23rd Street near Interstate 76, the property houses BJ’s Wholesale Club, The Home Depot and Sprouts Farmers Market as anchor tenants.
The borrower is a partnership between two New York City-based firms, DRA Advisors and KPR Centers. It acquired the center from Cedar Realty Trust in July 2022 as part of an $879M portfolio deal. Cedar Realty Trust bought the center in 2014 for $92.3M.
THIS AND THAT
Mitch Russell, associate director of industrial and logistics at Newmark, will be a sponsor of the Neurodiversity Employment Network in Philadelphia’s upcoming five-year celebration.
The event will be held Friday at Lincoln Financial Field. The program celebrates the group’s progress in employing neurodiverse candidates and will offer food, auction items that include a jersey signed by the Philadelphia Eagles’ newly-retired Jason Kelce and live entertainment from Rubato School of Music, a neurodiverse music group.
