Casino Also-Rans Leave Big Question Marks In City’s Landscape

The Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News Building in Philadelphia, PA. Taken from North Broad and Callowhill Streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Held hostage for a year by hope that they might snag a casino license, two pieces of prime central Philadelphia real estate lost that gamble this week – but may yet cash in, as all eyes await Plan B for both locations in a hot downtown market.

Developers who had proposed casinos at Eighth and Market Streets and the former Inquirer Building at Broad and Callowhill Streets said they had no alternate plans after learning Tuesday that the city’s second gaming license would instead go to a site near the sports arenas in South Philadelphia.

But with new apartment and retail development deals being inked virtually every week in and around Center City without public subsidy, it should not be long before new plans are hatched for both, as long as property owners agree to quick action, officials and market watchers said.

One top city official said market conditions were so favorable to development that the Nutter administration would have little patience if movement were not swift at one of the locations, which has remained inert for two decades as repeated plans have fizzled: the open-air lot at Eighth and Market owned by Ken Goldenberg and other investors.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20141122_Casino_also-rans_leave_big_question_marks_in_city_s_landscape.html#FiqqgVTmwOSW0RAU.99

Brandywine Finds Partner For 29-Story Apt. Tower At 1919 Market St.

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brandywine Realty Trust, the Radnor company that is the dominant office landlord in Center City, says it has a partner and detailed plans to build a 29-story, 321-apartment, $140 million tower on the grassy lot it controls at 1919 Market St. in Center City. The tower will also feature 24,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, mostly leased to Independence Blue Cross (IBC) and the CVS drugstore chain. Statement here.

Brandywine’s 50-50 joint venture partner for 1919 Market is Berwyn-based LCOR CalSTERS, a successor to the former Linpro Co., which now manages property investments for the California State Teachers Retirement System. The partners arranged to borrow $88.9 million for the project, pricing the credit at Libor plus 2.25%. Equity investment is $59.2 million, split by the two partners; Brandywine’s half includes the $13 million value of the land. The company projects a cash yield (rent/cost) of 7% a year (vs 8% for Brandywine’s $385 million FMC office/apartment tower, and 7.6% at Brandywine’s $158 million Evo apartment project, both in University City).

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/New-29-story-tower-proposed-for-1919-Market-St-.html#bOWzSHLeSA7BBpJU.99

Drexel, Amtrak, Brandywine Weigh Giant Development Plans

English: 30th Street Station In Philadelphia. Roughly speaking, the center of commuting in Philly, the former center of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Philly’s main Amtrak station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Officials at Drexel University, Amtrak, Brandywine Realty Trust and other city and West Philly institutions have been sitting down with developers in recent days to review proposals to build over the tracks at 30th Street Station and link the grandiose proposed Drexel Innovation Neighborhood and its high-rise, Rockefeller Center-like “Superblock” at 33rd and Market — whose 6.5 milllion sq ft, by itself, would be more than four times larger than the proposed new Comcast office tower — and other new Drexel-area construction to Center City, highways, the airport, Penn, and, you know, the rest of the world.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Drexel-Amtrak-Brandywine-weighing-giant-West-Philly-redevelopment.html#cKEU5LqSCK8zdcLb.99