The Real Estate Equity Co. of Englewood, N.J., bought
1330 Chestnut St., a three-story, 80,000-square-foot building in Center City,
for $29 million.
The seller was Carlyle Development Group of White Plains,
N.Y., which bought what was then a vacant property in 1998 for $3 million.
“It was empty and it took a long time to figure out what
to do with it,” said Larry Steinberg of CBRE Inc., who arranged the transaction
and has been involved in leasing the property while Carlyle owned it.
The property once housed a Woolworth’s, but that store
closed. The empty property remained a shell along what had then been a dreary
Chestnut Street. Eventually, Steinberg came up with a plan to lease it to
multiple retail tenants. It worked although that approach was uncommon at the
time.
“It was the first building in Philadelphia in which we
were able to lease as a multi-story retail,” he said. “It’s very unusual and
very unusual for a building that size.”
“At the time, almost 10 years ago, we though it was going
to give a jump to East Chestnut,” Steinberg said about leasing up the building.
“It didn’t. We had to wait nearly ten years for that to finally happen.”
Blick Art Materials, West Elm and Lucky Strike Bowling
occupy the space and have long-term leases in the property.
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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