Vacancy shored up, building comes back up for sale

Last summer, 401 Market St. in Center City was up for sale even though it had a decent amount of vacancy — more than 20 percent.

It wasn’t long that the office building, also known as the Plaza, was taken off of the market. Behind the scenes something dramatic was about to happen that would change the building’s vacancy situation for the better.

The American Bible Society announced it would relocate its headquarters into nearly 100,000 square feet at 401 Market and consolidate offices it now had New York and the Chesterbrook Corporate Center into the building.

Once the move is completed sometime this summer, the religious organization will occupy space on the eighth and ninth floors of the building and will install a Bible Discovery Center on the first floor. The organization is also exploring other uses in the space, such as a conference center, rare scriptures depository and library on the concourse level of the building.

While that took up a big block of contiguous space in the building, it got another boost when Wells Fargo & Co. decided to move 250 employees into 401 Market from The Wharf at Rivertown in Chester, Pa.

As a result, the vacancy issue in the 11-story, 481,958-square-foot structure was no more and the building was put back up for sale by Oaktree Capital Management and National Financial Realty Inc. NAI Geis Realty Group is marketing it.

Oaktree and National Financial bought 401 Market in 2013 as part of a $240 million portfolio acquisition of 40 office buildings totaling 3.4 million square feet from First States Investors. Of the space, 90 percent of it was occupied by Wells Fargo.

In its current state, with the vacancy shored up with long-term leases, some real estate people are estimating 401 Market could sell for more than $80 million. Over the last couple of years, a few office properties have traded in the Independence Square submarket including the Dow building, One Washington Square (formerly Penn Mutual Towers), and the Curtis Center. Penn Mutual Towers was put up for sale in December.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal