Montco real estate company buys Pa. shopping complex for $55.3M

A New York-based real estate investment trust disclosed the $55.3 million sale of an Allentown shopping center in its latest earnings report released Wednesday. 

Urban Edge Properties's portfolio includes 16.7 million square feet in 90 properties that are scattered along the East Coast from New Hampshire to South Carolina, and are also in California, Illinois, Missouri and Puerto Rico.

The REIT, which has about nine other shopping centers in Pennsylvania, sold MacArthur Commons, a nearly 372,000 square foot complex whose anchor tenants include a Burlington Coat Factory, a GIANT grocery store and Dick's Sporting Goods. The Urban Edge website indicates MacArthur Commons has a roughly 13,000 square foot store available for lease, though the current tenant – a furniture retailer – is still operating.

A property manager for the shopping center, located at 2631 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township, declined to comment on the sale. An Urban Edge spokesman did not immediately return calls requesting comment.

The Morning Call reports the buyer as Abrams Realty & Development; a message left with a company leader was not immediately returned.

A few months back, Elkins Park, Pa.-based Abrams was part of a partnership that acquired another retail center in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Whiteland Towne Center, a 218,086-square-foot shopping center at a high-profile corner of routes 100 and 30 in Exton, sold for $39 million.

The local real estate company also is part of a joint venture that owns the Penrose Plaza Shopping Center in South Philadelphia, where an existing Shop Rite grocery store is undergoing an expansion. The supermarket recently incorporated an in-store Saladworks into its space – a first for the Conshohocken-based healthy fast-casual restaurant chain.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal