Amazon rents lots of warehouses in the Philly area. Now it owns a building here too.

Amazon has paid $26.5 million for an aged office property in King of Prussia, a regional first for the company that until now has leased — rather than owned — its real estate in the Philadelphia area.

Amazon.com Services LLC bought the two-story, 230,000-square foot building in June from an affiliate of Malvern-based investor Eli Kahn, which had purchased the 57-year-old property just two months earlier for $2.5 million less than the e-commerce giant paid, records show.

Kahn bought the building at 760 Moore Rd., not far from I-76 and U.S. Routes 202 and 422, from a unit of the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Amazon leases nearly 60 existing or soon-to-be-completed warehouses of at least 100,000 square feet across the Greater Philadelphia region, according to market tracker the CoStar Group. And its Prime Now unit owns a smaller property in University City that it uses as an express-delivery hub.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Inquirer

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia or about any other King of Prussia properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 856-857-6300.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

King of Prussia Office Building Off Gulph Road Trades for $25.8M

A real estate company from Rehoboth Beach has acquired 211 S. Gulph Road, a 102,204-square-foot office building in King of Prussia, for $25.8 million, or roughly $250 a square foot.

This marks Jack Lingo Asset Management’s entrée into the Philadelphia office market. About a year ago, the company added office properties to its overall investment strategy, said Doug Motley, a principal at the firm.  The company decided with office use influx as a result of the pandemic and remote work, there would be increased opportunities to make some acquisitions. “Office has become an out of favor asset,” he said. 

Jack Lingo Asset Management is focusing on seven markets from Philadelphia down to Charleston, South Carolina, and the South Gulph Road property is its second office acquisition. It intends to buy mostly in the suburbs though “if the right opportunity presented itself, we would go downtown,” Motley said. “We really like the secondary and tertiary markets in the larger markets.”

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 856-857-6300.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Penn leases 150,000 SF at Discovery Labs in KoP

The University of Pennsylvania has signed a lease on 150,000 square feet at Discovery Labs in King of Prussia and will use the space for its gene therapy program. 

The space is in two buildings off Swedeland Road in what had been previously built and used by GlaxoSmithKline and later sold to a Radnor real estate company that is marketing the campus to life sciences and related tenants.  Two floors of the space will be used to expand Penn Vector Core. Vectors are used to deliver gene therapies in patients with conditions resulting from missing or malfunctioning genes.

Led by gene therapy expert Dr. James M. Wilson, Penn’s gene therapy program has been responsible for breakthrough therapies for a variety of disorders. In early 2019, The National Institutes of Health renewed a five-year contract with Penn’s gene therapy program and was awarded $13 million to support the advancement of gene-therapy research at the clinic.

*Article Courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 856-857-6300.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

E. Kahn Development buys vacant KoP building for $24.5M

E. Kahn Development has paid $24.5 million for 760 Moore Road, a vacant, 260,000-square-foot building in King of Prussia. 

The seller was BNY Mellon, which had used the building as an operations center for nearly two decades. The bank had determined it no longer needed the space, considering it as excess real estate and decided to sell, according to people familiar with the matter. A representative from the financial institution couldn’t be reach for comment.  The building last traded in 2002. That’s when O’Neill Properties Group sold it for $27.9 million to PFPC Inc., a division of PNC Financial Services Group that later came under the purview of BNY Mellon. At the time, ITT Educational Services opened a computer and technology college in 30,260 square feet of the building and PFPC also occupied the remainder of the space.

When O’Neill bought the building in 2000, it had been a vacant warehouse and the developer converted it into office space. 

The building came on the market last November and attracted plenty of investor interest, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Its location and flexibility as a single-story structure give the new owner the ability to consider several potential uses including converting it into life sciences space or even reverting it back to a warehouse space. There’s strong demand by Amazon and other companies for last-mile distribution centers. 

The building sits on 25 acres, providing amble parking, and is a short distance from Route 422, Route 202, Pennsylvania Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway. The property is also located in an old office park that is seeing more mixed use development, which may also provide other opportunities. Eli Kahn of E. Kahn Development couldn’t be reached for comment.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 856-857-6300.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Exclusive: Lord & Taylor at King of Prussia Mall Being Eyed for Office Space

Plans have been made to redevelop the Lord & Taylor department store at the King of Prussia Mall into office space. 

The two-story, 119,345-square-foot space will be rebranded as York Factory, a reference to a settlement in Canada that was also the site of a historical Hudson Bay factory. The King of Prussia store hasn’t closed yet but is scheduled to by the end of February. Though Lord & Taylor brand sold to Le Tote in 2019, it held onto its real estate assets with its space at King of Prussia being one of those locations. The mall is the largest in the nation by retail square footage.

Though already in early stages of planning, the conversion of vacant retail space at malls into other uses has gained traction during the pandemic. Mall owners are looking at ways to reposition these retail meccas that are increasingly suffering from store closures and bankruptcies, which are creating vacant space that aren’t easily backfilled with other retailers. 

Mall landlords want to transition their malls into mixed-use properties to revive them and keep them relevant. A local example of that is the Granite Run Mall, with a mix of retail and multifamily spaces. 

Though no longer viable as destinations solely focused on retail, malls have other attributes that make them candidates for redevelopment. They are well located with access to major arteries and mass transit, have an abundance of parking and built-in amenities with their stores, dining and entertainment.

A property group has reportedly been in talks to lease some of its vacant department store space to Amazon.com as fulfillment centers. The company has also been exploring developing an area at the King of Prussia Mall where J. C. Penney Co. Inc. once had a department store into apartments, hotel and office space.  At the Oxford Valley Mall, the group put up for sale 20 acres of the 135-acre property for the development of upwards of 600 apartments. As planned, the project would involve razing all or a portion of a former Boscov’s department store.

A year ago, a Philadelphia real estate company, bought a vacant Macy’s at the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem and has several different plans under consideration for the 273,000-square-foot property. 

The redevelopment of the former Lord & Taylor at 180 N. Gulph Road in King of Prussia had initially been eyed as coworking space targeting office and medical users. The pandemic altered that plan and it has now evolved into traditional office space that is being marketed to a range of tenants, according to a person familiar with the matter. Redevelopment of the building in King of Prussia will begin once a certain amount of leasing has been secured. A marketing brochure for York Factory at King of Prussia describes the revamped space as “turnkey designs” that are “built to maximize productivity, empowering employees to choose how and where they work best.”

Plans call for adding windows to what is now a solid, windowless box as will a central atrium, grand staircase and a rooftop lounge area. A series of amenities will also be incorporated into the space that range from weekly events along with a gym and yoga studio to concierge services and the potential to include full-time licensed child care programs. Rents for the space would be around $30 a square foot. 

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 856-857-6300.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

With $2M from Well-Known Philadelphia-Area CEOs, KoP Fintech Startup Finds Success and Adds 100 Employees During Covid

PowerPay Co-founders David Haas and Michael Petrakis launched the company just before the Covid-19 pandemic, and started turning a profit six months in.

David Haas and his co-founder Mike Petrakis went into the Covid-19 pandemic with $2 million in seed funding from a handful of well-known Philadelphia CEOs, 10 employees and a prayer. 

The leaders of King of Prussia fintech startup PowerPay, which helps home contractors offer financing to customers, didn’t anticipate how much the pandemic would drive a need for home repairs and renovations when Covid-19 hit. It was just three months after the company launched. “We were charging ahead, our lenders were ready to go, we got everything turned on, and the pandemic hits,” Haas said. “We were thinking ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen? Are we going to be out of business?’” Haas said.

Instead, PowerPay is starting 2021 with a staff that’s swelled to 110 and plans to grow to 200 within the year. It has originated more than $1 billion in loans through a network of more than 7,000 contractors. It started turning a profit six months in, Haas said. 

“We expect that to continue to grow, and we reinvest everything into the business,” he said. “It gives us fuel to not have to raise more money, and continue to grow and add more headcount.”

Haas and Petrakis are both “Philly guys” with backgrounds in the home improvement and financing industries, Haas said. They came up with the idea of PowerPay after seeing a gap in the home repair and renovation market. A lot of existing financing options for contractors to offer customers came with high fees that would either have to be eaten by the contractor or passed along to the customer, he said. 

PowerPay instead allows contractors to offer customers financing through the loan approval platform, with options to use a basic version for free or pay for an upgraded version. It can also be used directly by consumers looking to finance their home projects. 

To get the company off the ground, the founders raised $2 million in seed funding in September 2019 from an impressive group of well-known local business leaders, including former Beneficial Bank CEO Gerry Cuddy, who led the bank through its acquisition by WSFS; Gary and Steven Erlbaum, of the founding family behind David’s Bridal; Hersha Hospitality Trust CEO Jay Shah and Eustace Mita, CEO of Jersey Shore hospitality group Icona Resorts. 

It was important the co-founders to keep the company as local as possible and turn to local investors, Haas said. 

“These guys are very successful, they’re big thinkers and are always talking about scale and how to get national fast, and that’s what we did,” he said. 

Interest rates start at 8.99% and are set by PowerPay, which services every loan. Its lending is supported by a network of credit unions that has committed to financing up to $15 billion in loans, Haas said, allowing the company to be “very, very aggressive in the marketplace.” 

PowerPay also earns revenue from its lenders through a percentage of the revenue they receive from the loan. 

The company’s growth was driven by what he described as a combination of both “wants and needs” homeowners faced during the pandemic, from replacing a broken down washing machine to a building a new addition for a home office.   At the same time, traditional lenders tightened their belts, and contractors had fewer financing options to offer to their influx of new customers. 

“When we were rushing in, everybody else was rushing out,” he said, adding large contracting firms then had nowhere to go except PowerPay. “We picked up everybody.” 

Any fixture inside or attached to a house is eligible for the loan, including roofing, windows, siding, kitchen and bathroom remodels and HVAC systems. Pools have been an especially big business for the company as consumers have channeled funds that would have been used for travel or vacations into creating a staycation-friendly home. 

In the near future, the company is working on growing its staff, which is based out of a 25,000 square-foot office space in King of Prussia, although most employees work remotely. A revamp of the platform is already underway as well. 

By this time next year, Haas expects the company to reach $3 billion in loans originated. 

“The platform is scalable,” he said. “It’s all about execution and scaling.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 215-799-6900.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

King of Prussia Flex Building Trades for More than $9M

Velocity Venture Partners has paid $9.3 million for 780 Fifth Ave., a 97,000-square-foot flex building in King of Prussia. 

The acquisition is one of a series that Velocity has made this year as it spent $150 million to double its industrial holdings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The company bought 2 million square feet across 21 buildings and now owns a portfolio totaling 4 million square feet. 

Among its acquisitions this year was 771 Fifth Ave., a 30,300-square-foot building next door to its latest acquisition; a 667,019-square-foot industrial building at 2750 Morris Road in the Lansdale area; and several buildings in Pennsauken, New Jersey, including a 37,856-square-foot warehouse facility located at 2301 Haddonfield Road. 

The Bala Cynwyd-based company plans to continue its buying spree. The King of Prussia purchase was the first of six transactions it plans to close by the end of this year and intends to buy more next year.

Velocity bought its latest King of Prussia building that was 89% leased at the time of the sale.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 215-799-6900.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Protecs to develop 74,000 s.f. lab-office building in King of Prussia

Protecs Inc., a Plymouth Meeting company that has spent the last eight years converting offices into lab space for life science and tech firms, has set its sights on developing a new 74,000-square-foot building in Upper Merion. 

The new structure will be built on nearly six acres at 3700 Horizon Drive and connected to an existing 21,800-square-foot building that Protecs turned into lab and office space. While the building will initially be marketed as a built-to-suit, Christopher DiPaolo, president and founder of Protecs, is confident that the space will lease up to multiple tenants if one big one doesn’t come along. 

“We are seeing so much activity,” he said. “Throughout Covid, I’ve been busier with this than my other work.”

DiPaolo’s main line of business is a design and construction management firm that serves a variety of sectors but has a focus on pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and other high-tech companies. He began Protec Innovation Centers as side business in 2012 after buying a building at 5100-5110 Campus Drive in Plymouth Meeting that once housed Genaera Corp., a now-defunct biotechnology company. 

DiPaolo renovated the space and began leasing it to early-stage life sciences firms and other technology-related businesses. It became apparent that he was filling a void in the market and on the vanguard of what has blossomed into a growing niche area of real estate. 

The cost of converting a building into R&D space is less than ground up development, which helps keep expenses down for these early stage companies. The space, which is ready for tenants to move in, also provides them with the ability to move in right away. Many companies he has recently been leasing to have been working on Covid research and therapies. 

There are a growing number of companies that have financing backing, want their own labs and equipment and need between 2,500 and 25,000 square feet of space but the supply is lacking, he said. “We target the gap,” DiPaolo said. 

For example, Iovance Biotherapeutics, which is having a new lab and manufacturing facility built for it at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, recently signed a lease on 3,000 square feet at 5110 Campus Drive.

Aside from Campus Drive in Plymouth Meeting and Horizon Drive in King of Prussia, Protecs also owns a 50,000-square-foot building at 512 Township Line Road in Blue Bell that is also been converted into one of its innovation centers. Between its three locations, the company has 120,000 square feet of office and lab space that will grow to roughly 200,000 square feet once the King of Prussia building is constructed. Rents range between $25 and $30 a square foot. 

Its existing space is nearly full with 16 companies and just about 7,000 square feet of vacant space, keeping DiPaolo on the lookout for additional acquisitions. 

At 512 Township Line, Protec recently leased 8,259 square feet to KorGene, a company that is developing targeted, molecular diagnostics, and is expanding. It also signed ThirdLaw Technologies to 4,808 square feet. It focuses on synthetic and computational chemistry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about King of Prussia office space for sale or lease in King of Prussia  or about any other King of Prussia  properties for sale or lease, please contact WCRE at 215-799-6900.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Fast-growing biotech firm takes King of Prussia space, plans 100 new jobs

WuXi Biologics has leased 33,000 square feet at the Discovery Labs in King of Prussia and expects to add 100 jobs by the end of this year.

The company took the King of Prussia space earlier this year and “plans to build a development lab to serve our local and global biotech and biopharma partners,” said Ruyi Shi, a WuXi Biologics spokeswoman, in an email. The company declined to elaborate, saying that no additional information was available at this time. 

On Glassdoor, LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter, WuXi Biologics has job postings for research associates, scientists, quality assurance specialists and other positions involving working in a lab in King of Prussia.

Discovery Labs is a 1.6-million-square-foot campus that includes 1 million square feet of former GlaxoSmithKline manufacturing and office space at 411 Swedeland Road in Upper Merion. Earlier this year, developer Brian O’Neillannounced he had teamed up with Deerfield Management Co. to launch the Center for Breakthrough Medicines in 680,000 square feet at Discovery Labs that would serve as a manufacturing facility for companies needing a place to outsource cell-and-gene therapy and other production. 

A representative from Discovery Labs declined to comment on WuXi Biologics taking space in the facility. 

WuXi Biologics started out in 2010 as a division of WuXi AppTec Co. Ltd., a Shanghai-based company that provides research and development and manufacturing services to pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies. WuXi AppTec has a significant presence in the region at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and is among the largest tenants at the South Philadelphia campus, occupying more than 380,000 square feet of space. The company employs more than 600 people at the Navy Yard.

The company recently completed a third $38 million, 95,000-square-foot office and laboratory building at 400 Rouse Blvd. for its advanced therapies business unit. 

WuXi Biologics was spun out of WuXi AppTec in 2015 and went public in 2017 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It initially started out providing cell development and other related services but then expanded into discovery, development, testing and manufacturing. It helps facilitate taking a concept through commercialization for the pharmaceutical industry. At the end of last year, the company had 250 drugs in pre-clinical development stage, early and late-phase development. 

The company has also said it plans to start construction on a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Worcester, Massachusetts, during the second quarter.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Purolite relocates headquarters to KoP

Purolite Corp. has relocated its headquarters to King of Prussia from its longtime home in Bala Cynwyd.

The company, which makes specialty resins used in the pharmaceutical and other industries, signed a 10-year lease on 12,500 square feet at 2201 Renaissance Blvd. Equus Capital Partners is the landlord and the company completed a move into the new office space this month. The company has 1,000 employees around the world but 40 in its headquarters.

Purolite had been in 9,700 square feet at 150 Monument Road, where it had grown in piecemeal fashion over the last 36 years. The move was prompted by a desire to be in contemporary space in an area that has access to amenities and the ability to attract employees from a wider geographic area.

“We wanted some place to fit where we are today,” said Jacob Brodie, vice president of the company that was started by his father and uncle. “We are an innovative tech and manufacturing company involved in the life science and pharmaceutical industries.”

In its search for a new headquarters, the company considered remaining in Bala Cynwyd but also explored buildings in King of Prussia, Conshohocken and Plymouth Meeting. “We were looking for a great space in a vibrant area,” Brodie said.

The building at 2201 Renaissance provided it with the ability to build out state-of-the-art space the way it wanted with more glass, collaboration areas, phone and huddle rooms and an expansive café. At its old office in Bala Cynwyd, the kitchen was so small it could accommodate only five people at a time, Brodie said.

Purolite also decided to use the move as an opportunity to brand the space to better reflect what it does and the company’s culture. 

The company also occupies 225,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 3620 G St. in Philadelphia. It has been there since 1985 and has 100 employees that work from the building.


*Article courtesy of Natalie Kostelni of Philly Business Journal

Wolf Commercial Real Estate, a full-service CORFAC International brokerage and advisory firm, is a premier King of Prussia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of King of Prussia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other King of Prussia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

Please visit our websites for a full listing of King of Prussia commercial properties for lease or sale through our King of Prussia commercial real estate brokerage firm.