DuPont Co. Leaving Wilmington

DuPont Co. says it is consolidating its headquarters offices, located since the World War I era in a high-rise complex fronting the north side of Rodney Square in the heart of Wilmington, to the company’s suburban Chestnut Run Plaza complex west of the city, effective July 1.

NEW: The company plans to move between 800-1,000 workers from the DuPont Building out to Chestnut Run; another 800-1,000 will remain, for the time being, with DuPont’s Performance Chemicals business, spokesman Daniel A. Turner told me. DuPont is spinning off that unit as part of a new company, Chemours (they say it “KEM-oars”), which has not yet chosen a permanent headquarters. Company statement here.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/DuPont-pulling-HQ-out-of-Wilmington.html#XDMgTWZSU6ZmDILo.99

New Economic Study Points To Rapid Growth In Downtown Pittsburgh

English: Downtown Pittsburgh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it comes to economic and residential growth, the Golden Triangle has had the golden touch in recent years, with almost $800 million in development under construction and about twice that much planned.

A study released on Thursday predicts that trend will continue with explosive development of apartments, hotels and retail and high-end office space in Pittsburgh’s Greater Downtown, including the Triangle, North Shore, South Shore, Uptown, the Bluff and near Strip District as far northeast as 31st Street.

“We’re only experiencing the beginning of Downtown’s transformation,” said Jeremy Waldrup, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership.

The partnership produced the study, which looked at economic indicators in several key areas to evaluate Downtown’s vitality. It gave the results in a presentation at Union Trust Building — itself a symbol of Downtown’s revitalization.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6115943-74/downtown-percent-partnership#ixzz31tEGYvVi
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No Lack Of Ideas For Steamtown Mall’s Future

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

As Betty Lou and Larry Stevens carried bags of heavily discounted merchandise out of the closing Bon-Ton store, the Moosic residents hoped Ikea will take its place at the Mall at Steamtown.

The couple currently drives to Philadelphia’s branch of the Swedish store when they need furniture and thought Ikea could provide a major draw to the downtown Scranton mall.

“I think people would come to Steamtown for Ikea,” Mrs. Stevens said.

John Topa, the mall’s director of marketing and specialty leasing, told The Times-Tribune last week mall officials have a replacement lined up for the departing anchor store that would revitalize the downtown shopping center.

Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/no-lack-of-ideas-for-mall-s-future-1.1605656

Natural Gas Boom Fuels U.S. Office Market

Locator map of the Greater Pittsburgh metro area in the western part of the of . Red denotes the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, and yellow denotes the New Castle Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bloomberg — Leasing demand from natural-gas and other energy companies is helping to bolster the U.S. office market and drive growth in cities such as Pittsburgh, where rents are at their highest in more than a decade.

Greater Pittsburgh, along with Houston and other cities with concentrations of energy-related workers, is outpacing national growth in rents and occupancy, according to a report today from Reis Inc., which showed U.S. office landlords had net gains in leased space for a second year in 2012, following three years of declines.  Tenants in energy, along with technology, helped push the national vacancy rate to a three-year low.

In the fourth quarter, greater Pittsburgh office rents after landlord concessions climbed 1 percent from the previous three months, compared with 0.8 percent for the U.S., while the area’s vacancy rate held at 15.5 percent, below the national average of 17.1 percent, New York-based Reis said. Pittsburgh tenants paid an average of $17.68 a square foot in the fourth quarter, the highest since 2000, ranking it 12th out of 79 markets for growth.  In Houston, effective rents rose 1.7 percent, the fifth-most nationwide.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-energy-office-market-20130107,0,3658617.story

Berks-Area Malls And Strips Find Challenges Of Economic Downturn Linger

There is no question that retail businesses have been suffering for the past two years as a result of a weak economy.

Economists predict only slight improvement in 2012. So what does that mean for our local malls and shopping centers?

Shopping Centers Today, a leading publication in the industry, reported in January that shopping center vacancies in the United States averaged 11 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. That figure was up from 10.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 and not far from the all-time high of 11.1 percent reached in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Read more: http://businessweekly.readingeagle.com/?p=1899