One Franklin Plaza comes back up for sale

One Franklin Plaza, a Center City office building that had served as the headquarters for GlaxoSmithKline, is back on the market.

The 24-story, 607,471-square-foot office building at 200 N. 16th St. had been put up for sale in November 2013 at a time when its owner, then called CommonWealth REIT, was in turmoil. Even though final and best offers were put in on the building, it was taken off the market. Issues surrounding the real estate company have been settled and it transitioned into a firm now called Equity Commonwealth. That, along with an active investment market and increased interest in Philadelphia, has prompted the real estate company to put it back up for sale.

While pricing is a moving target, it could trade some where in the low $40 million range.

There was interest in the property before but it seems that it's getting even more investor attention this time around, said Mike Margolis, an investment broker with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank who has the listing.

"We've gotten a great response and it's going well so far," he said.

Prospective buyers are coming from in and outside of the area and have been looking at a variety of uses for the building, Margolis said. Some want to keep it as office space, convert it to residential or make it a mixed-use development.

Drexel University had seriously looked at the building when it was previously up for sale but it couldn't be determined if the school was going to make a run at it this time around.

GlaxoSmithKline had occupied the entire building beginning in 1980 before it relocated to the Navy Yard in 2013.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal