PHILADELPHIA | Broad + Spring Garden | 330 & 140 FT | 20 & 13 FLOORS

[summersm343]

Title: Broad + Spring Garden
Project: office space, luxury apartments, retail
Architect: BLTa
Developer: Nightingale Group and Parkway Corp.
Location: Broad and Spring Garden St., Philadelphia, PA
Neighborhood: Spring Garden
District: North Philadelphia
Floors: 20 & 13
Height: 330 & 140 FT







Parkway proposes nearly $500M project for North Broad

Parkway Corp., in partnership with New York-based Nightingale Group, has bold plans to develop a nearly $500 million mixed-use project on what is now a surface parking lot at the corner of Broad Street and Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia.

Preliminary plans call for constructing two structures that will have a blend of residential, retail, parking and office components on a 68,000-square-foot parcel at the northwest corner of Broad and Spring Garden. If built, the project will establish a new anchor for North Broad and affirm its place in Philadelphia's continued renaissance.

As now planned, the residential portion will total 127,000 square feet and will have 144 apartments, 87,000 square feet will be dedicated to retail space and a separate18-story structure will have 586,000 square feet of office space. A park will separate the two buildings and be activated by outdoor dining and other activities. The project is estimated to cost roughly $480 million. It was designed by BLT Architects.

Perhaps the most ambitious part of the proposal is a single building dedicated just to office space. It’s challenging to construct a multi-tenanted office building in Philadelphia let alone one that doesn’t have a Keystone Opportunity Zone or other public subsidy to financially support it. This not lost on Rob Zuritsky, president of Parkway, and his team. In spite of those challenges, there is a desire pursue it not only from a development standpoint but as part of a somewhat noble desire to provide an impactful boost in an area that could use it.

“I really wanted to do something major to help get some jobs up here,” Zuritsky said. "This is a major corner that should be something really big.”

By developing a large office building in this area also pushes the boundaries of the Philadelphia office market.

“People may not consider this as Center City but it is,” said James A. Egan, an office broker with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who, along with colleagues Matthew Guerrieri and Jeffrey M. Tertel, has been enlisted to secure tenants for the space. “A good example of how the Center City office market has stretched its boundaries is 1500 Spring Garden Street.”

Initially marketed as a data center, the 12-story, 1.1-million-square-foot building at 1500 Spring Garden has successfully been leased up as an office building, attracting tenants such as Day & Zimmerman, Thomson Reuters and CBS.

The developer is also banking on the building’s design with lots of glass, large floorplates, ability for exterior signage and other characteristics will lure office tenants to the site. Though there is optimism about attracting tenants to kick off the office building, there is some flexibility that allows the developer to adjust the size of the office component, even eliminate it, depending on how the market responds but that’s not the objective.

“Our goal is to have a unified project that works together,” Farruggia said.

To that end, the mix of uses are meant to support each component. For example, the retail will help attract corporate tenants who want the ability to offer on-site amenities to its employees and residents who also want the ability to dine, work out or go grocery shopping just steps away from their apartments.

With 80,000 square feet split between two levels in the office building and another 4,500 square feet in the residential structure, there’s opportunity to do a grocery store as well as restaurants and other uses, said Larry Steinberg, a retail broker with CBRE Inc. who, along with colleague Paige Jaffe, has been retained to seek out tenants for the space.

"We think it could be a real addition to North Broad," said Joe Zuritsky, CEO of Parkway. "We feel good about going North."

Renderings in link:
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...for-north.html