EASTON, PENN. — Quick-service restaurant Playa Bowls has signed a 2,000-square-foot retail lease in Easton, an eastern suburb of Allentown. The restaurant serves fruit bowls, smoothies, soups, salads and other items. The space is located within the Lower Nazareth Commons Shopping Center, an approximately 90,200-square-foot retail center located at 3770 Dryland Way. Target anchors the retail center, and other tenants include Petco and Burlington Coat Factory. Scott Horner of Colliers International represented the Playa Bowls in the lease negotiations. The landlord, Regency Centers Corp., was represented internally.
PHILADELPHIA — NorthBridge Partners has acquired a 281,000-square-foot, four-building portfolio situated on 27.3 acres in Philadelphia for $25.5 million. The assets are located at 2722 Commerce Way, 2801-17 Southampton Road, 2825-45 Southampton Road and 2191 Hornig Road. The properties offer convenient access to the Interstate 95 corridor. At the time of sale, the portfolio was 94 percent leased to 12 tenants including United Natural Foods Inc., Goodman Distribution and the City of Philadelphia. Frank Roddy of Roddy Inc. represented NorthBridge in the transaction. The seller(s) was undisclosed.
WILKES-BARRE, PENN. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the $2.6 million sale of Verizon & FedEx Strip Centers, a 9,306-square-foot retail strip center in Wilkes-Barre, a city in northeastern Pennsylvania. The strip is located at 940-46 Schechter Drive and was 100 percent leased at the time of sale. Derrick Dougherty and Mark Krantz of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller and secured the buyer. Both parties were limited liability companies that requested anonymity.
BENSALEM, PA. — Colliers International has brokered the sale of a 211,000-square-foot retail property formerly occupied by Macy’s in Bensalem, a northeastern suburb of Philadelphia. The property is located within the Neshaminy Mall, a 1.2 million-square-foot shopping and dining destination that opened in 1968. The buyer, Sant Properties, plans to reposition the vacant box for multiple tenant spaces. The sales price was undisclosed.
PITTSBURGH — SomeraRoad Inc., a value-add investment and development firm based in New York City, has taken full ownership of SouthSide Works in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood. The adaptive reuse project was formerly the site of J&L Steel Works and now houses approximately 280,000 square feet of retail space, 180,000 square feet of office space and 85 apartments. The project opened in 2004. SomeraRoad plans to undertake more than $37 million in capital improvements and invest $130 million in new development at the project, including 230 apartments and 200,000 square feet of office space fronting the Monongahela River. Another key feature of the new development plan is the conversion of the SouthSide Works Cinema to a 77,000-square-foot creative office space dubbed Box Office. SomeraRoad plans for the new office space to house about 500 office workers. The Kansas City office of HOK Architecture will design Box Office, which SomeraRoad will begin work on this summer. “The cinema’s grand entry, high ceilings and efficient useable floorplate, coupled with steel and glass improvements and the adaptive reuse appeal, creates a unique office conversion opportunity Pittsburgh hasn’t seen before,” says Jon Reeser, SomeraRoad’s vice president of acquisitions and head of its Pittsburgh office. …
The modern craft beer brewery has emerged as a niche community anchor with flexible business models and loyal customer bases across the United States, particularly in the Northeast. Combining elements of retail, industrial and hospitality models, craft breweries have quickly become one of the most dynamic and trendy business types in major cities and small towns, alike. Some of the largest and most popular craft breweries in the United States are based in the Northeast, including the two largest: Pennsylvania-based D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc.; and Boston Beer Co., the parent company of Samuel Adams. Vermont has the most breweries per capita in the United States with more than 66, according to the national Brewers Association’s most recent nationwide census in 2018. The census identified more than 155 breweries in Massachusetts and more than 354 breweries in Pennsylvania — and those numbers have only increased over time. “Massachusetts and Pennsylvania both have a long history in brewing, and there’s a lot of variation from region to region — even city to city,” says Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association. “Breweries appeal to their hyper-local community and also can bring in a lot of tourism and outside dollars. During …
PENNSYLVANIA — SRS Real Estate Partners has brokered the $36 million sale of a 26-property retail portfolio leased to Dollar General. The properties are located in various suburban areas throughout Pennsylvania. Each freestanding store features approximately 9,000 square feet of retail space, and all leases have between 12 and 13 years remaining. The stores sold for approximately $1.4 million each. Andrew Fallon of SRS represented the seller, Tennessee-based GBT Realty Corp., which developed the properties over the past two years, in the transaction. The buyer was a Virginia-based private investment group that was completing a 1031 exchange.
ALLENTOWN, PA. — JLL has arranged a $111 million loan for the refinancing and construction of Park 100 Logistics Center, an industrial park in Allentown, central Pennsylvania. Wells Fargo Bank provided the three-year, floating-rate loan to the borrower, a partnership between GLP Capital Partners and Ridgeline Property Group. Situated at 7352 Industrial Blvd., the property includes a newly constructed, 730,080-square-foot distribution facility and an adjacent 811,200-square-foot production facility that is currently under construction. The latter component is slated to be complete later this year. Bill Fishel, Jon Mikula and Connor Van Cleef of JLL arranged the financing.
State College, PA. — Toll Brothers Campus Living is set to open Phase I of The Yards at Old State, a 1,093-bed student housing development located near Pennsylvania State University in State College. The first phase of development will include 164 fully furnished, cottage-style units. Shared amenities will include a 21,000-square-foot clubhouse, resort-style swimming pool with hot tubs, an indoor basketball court, a state-of-the-art fitness center and study spaces. Phase I is set to open in summer 2020.
Anyone who has kept an eye on the healthcare real estate sector over the past several years is aware of the property type’s reliability amidst increasing economic uncertainty, which has resulted in growing interest among investors. However, for what has become one of the hottest investment sectors in recent years, transformations underway within the healthcare industry will bring changes to the asset class over the next decade. Bob Atkins, Managing Partner, Atkins Cos. The market fundamentals are easy to understand. According to a recent report from Real Capital Analytics, United States-based healthcare real estate assets account for over $1 trillion in market value. Physician visits by baby boomers are expected to nearly double in the next decade; it is also projected that by 2060, one in four people will be over 65 years old. These factors make it clear that this already large market is positioned for continued growth. However, in crowded regional healthcare markets like Philadelphia, which features several large competing healthcare systems and a variety of growing specialty networks, that growth will not just be more of the same. Changes in Delivery Traditionally, the American healthcare delivery model centered on hospitals, which meant that medical office buildings tended …