Friday, October 23, 2015

Post Brothers makes big move into University City



Post Brothers has quietly amassed 550 apartments in a total of seven properties in University City as part of a strategy to establish a large footprint in that Philadelphia neighborhood.

The Philadelphia company has ambitions to spend upwards of $250 million acquiring multifamily properties over the next couple of years in University City.


Its most recent purchase was Garden Court Plaza, a 13-story, 146-unit apartment complex at 4701 Pine St. The seller was an entity involving Alan H. Klein Properties. Post Brothers declined to disclose a sale price.

The company has decided to make a move into the West Philadelphia area to fill what it believes is a void in the market.

Post Brothers contends there is a lack of adequate rental housing for graduate and professionals who want to live in these neighborhoods of Philadelphia. In contrast, University City and West Philadelphia has an abundance of housing that is geared to undergraduate students.

“The statistics behind the growth of University City is so compelling,” said Matt Pestronk, who co-founded Post Brothers with his brother, Michael Pestronk. “We see the Science Center and that area of West Philadelphia becoming like Cambridge. In fact, it’s not the next Cambridge. It’s there now and we believe that area is going to out perform any other area of the city where we own properties.”

Pestronk’s only regret is that he and his brother weren’t in the position to buy these properties when they were students at Drexel University.

“We could have bought 10 years ago for half as much as we paid now,” he said.

Pestronk declined to divulge the apartment buildings Post Brothers has bought so far, saying that some of the sellers didn’t want it to be made public at this time.

He did, however, say that the company now owns the entire southside of the 4400 block of Walnut Street.

Post Brothers plans to upgrade and reposition the properties it buys, which is a tactic it has deployed at other properties it has acquired.

Among the work it plans to do at Garden Court Plaza, which was built between 1927 and 1929, includes building a green roof on top of the structure’s 260-car parking garage as well as making improvements to its exteriors and interiors.

“University City has long been a hotbed for the City’s brightest young minds, and the continued expansion of local arts and culture has only made it a more attractive place to live,” said Michael Pestronk, of Post Brothers, in a statement.

“Our principal goal is to harness the energy of this exciting neighborhood to create re-imagined, high-quality apartments that are reflective of the neighborhood’s vibrant, upwardly-mobile population.”

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