Center City Office Tower Enters Receivership Following Precipitous Occupancy Drop
The loan underpinning a nearly half-vacant Center City office tower has been placed into receivership.
ASI Management’s default at 1650 Arch St. comes after the 553K SF building’s occupancy fell from 93% in 2018 to 52%, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.
The company still owes $46.9M of the $75.8M it borrowed from an affiliate of Wilmington-based Delphi Financial Group when it purchased the building in 2018, according to a June 12 foreclosure complaint obtained by the outlet.
ACORE Capital Mortgage is Delphi’s administrative agent for the loan, and OPEX Management became the property’s court-appointed receiver July 7. OPEX aims to increase the property’s occupancy and reposition it as a Class-A asset.
“[ACORE Capital’s] thought process is the building is open for business,” OPEX CEO Brenton Hutchinson told the PBJ.
The property is on the same block as the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s Suburban Station rail hub and houses a Mexican consulate on the second floor.
ASI, OPEX, ACORE and Delphi Financial Group did not immediately respond to Bisnow’s requests for comment.
Low occupancy has been a major issue for many Center City office owners since the pandemic hollowed out the neighborhood’s commuter population in 2020.
The vacancy rate in Center City’s office sector has begun to stabilize in recent months, with the metric falling 30 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 20.4%, according to JLL’s Q2 2025 office report.
But much of that stability can be attributed to office space coming off the market for residential conversions.
Prime examples include Alterra Property Group’s redevelopment of 1701 Market St. and TF Cornerstone’s partial conversion of the Wanamaker Building’s office floors.
“It’s a huge part of the reason vacancy rates have been stable,” JLL Philadelphia Research Manager Emily Friedman told Bisnow earlier this month of the office-to-residential trend. “If we were looking at vacancy as it applies only to leasing, we would be struggling a lot more.”
