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Amazon grocery store headed to new Northern Liberties project

By Natalie Kostelni – Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Sep 28, 2020, 3:56pm EDT

Amazon.com Inc. has signed a lease for one of its new grocery stores in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia, according to sources familiar with the deal.

The online retailer has taken 40,000 square feet of 60,000 square feet that is proposed for a new apartment complex at 5th and Spring Garden streets, the sources says. The project calls for a 13-story building with 382 apartments and underground parking with 206 spaces, according to plans filed earlier this year with Philadelphia’s Civic Design Review. The retail portion that Amazon would anchor faces 6th Street at Spring Garden, the plans show.

A representative from Rodin Development, a Philadelphia real estate company that is proposing the project, couldn’t be reached for comment. Officials at Amazon could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project at 5th and Spring Garden would rise on a site that involved five different owners and took six months to negotiate. Ken Mallin of MPN Realty arranged the deal between Rodin Development and the owners of the property, which is a small retail strip center.

The project, though not a carbon copy, is similar to another development Rodin completed in 2016 called Rodin Square. That $160 million development has a 10-story apartment component called Dalian on the Park at 500 N. 21st that has 293 rental units as well as a 500-vehicle parking facility. The 85,000-square-foot retail component of that development is leased to Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon. Other tenants are Santander Bank, Jefferson Hospital and CVS.

In its ongoing quest to expand its grocery footprint beyond Whole Foods, Amazon has narrowed down two other locations in the Philadelphia suburbs for its new chain of stores. The two locations that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has zeroed in are in Bucks County. One deal has Amazon leasing 36,000 square feet of a 49,000-square-foot former Giant at Creekview Center off Easton Road in Warrington. Another site is 41,000 square feet of a former Kmart at the Brookwood Shopping Center on Street Road in Bensalem.

Amazon been experimenting with a grocery concept that is different from its Whole Foods chain and unlike its Amazon Go, which is more like a convenience store with no cashier and more like a traditional grocery.

Rodin is finishing up the permitting process and it was unclear when the real estate company would proceed with the Northern Liberties project. It will add to an ongoing revitalization of that corner of Philadelphia that began nearly five years ago.

That’s when Alliance HSP began converting the former Destination Maternity headquarters into a mixed-use development anchored by Target and Yards Brewing Co. A 50-unit apartments complex called SoNo will round out that development and expected to be completed next year.