Friday, January 8, 2016

Keystone closes on GSB building, considers mixed-use development at site



Keystone Property Group is tinkering with ideas for a mixed-use development along City Avenue after closing on buying One Belmont Ave., a 12-story, 245,000-square-foot office building in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., for an estimated $46 million.

The real estate company plans to spend $13 million making a series of upgrades to the building commonly referred to as the GSB building for the former Germantown Savings Bank that was once housed in it.


The building is 93 percent occupied. Robert Fahey and Jerry Kranzel of CBRE Inc . represented the owners of One Belmont and arranged the transaction in cooperation with Gene McHale of Beacon Commercial Real Estate , who was the leasing agent for the building.

Money will be spent making improvements to the HVAC system, elevators, lobby and common areas, said Rich Gottlieb , senior vice president of Keystone.

The real estate company is also devising a master plan that would take advantage of special zoning that allows for mixed-use, dense development in Bala Cynwyd. The property has a vast parking lot that is ripe for expansion and new development.

“We think it is one of the best opportunities to do a mixed use development,” he said. “It’s across the street from Lord & Taylor and on City Avenue. I think we can really do something that will excite everyone.”

Those plans are very early in the process and Gottlieb couldn’t elaborate further.

One Belmont was put up for sale December 2014 and was sold by Maguire & Partners , a Bala Cynwyd firm that bought the structure in a joint venture in 2004 for about $37 million. Keystone already owns four office properties in Bala Cynwyd including One Presidential Blvd., 150 Monument Road, 225 City Ave. and 15 King’s Grant.

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