Trammell Crow Breaks Ground on Two-Building Industrial Park in Aston

Trammell Crow Co.’s Northeast Metro Business Unit has broke ground on Springbrooke Trade Center, a two-building industrial park about 22 miles southwest of Center City Philadelphia in Aston, Pennsylvania.

Springbrooke Trade Center is set to include a 210,400-square-foot building at 300 Springbrooke Blvd. and a 273,600-square-foot building at 500 Springbrooke Blvd. Both facilities are set to include a 36-foot clear height, 7-inch concrete floor slabs, LED high-bay motion sensor lighting, truck queuing lanes and segregated car and truck areas. Each building can also be fully secured without limiting access to the other and are divisible.

The industrial development sits on a 36-acre site about a mile from Interstate 95 and 12 miles from the Philadelphia International Airport.

Springbrooke Trade Center is set to be completed by the third quarter of 2021.

*Article courtesy of CoStar

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia and Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Amazon’s Rapid Warehouse Expansion Reverberates Across the Nation

Earlier this month, Amazon opened a new 1-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Berks County. The facility is the online retail giant’s 15th large fulfillment center in Pennsylvania and is expected to create 1,000 new full-time jobs paying at least $15 an hour.

Amazon fulfillment centers like this one typically draw a small ecosystem of other businesses nearby — packaging suppliers, van delivery and trucking companies contracted with Amazon, and assorted restaurants. There’s also an increase in traffic as vans rush out to deliver packages, semis roll in to loading docks and employees buzz to and from work.

For communities hit hard by the Covid-19 recession as well as declines in manufacturing jobs and other blue-collar work, an Amazon fulfillment center can be seen as salvation.

Now multiply that impact on one community by at least 70.

As the pandemic stretches Amazon’s resources, the company is expanding its logistics network across the country at a staggering clip. And the expansion comes as Amazon has hired 400,000 workers in the past 10 months, bringing its total headcount to nearly 1.2 million, a 50% increase in less than a year.

In short, Amazon needs space. Lots of it.

Rush for warehouse space

Amazon, though often secretive about its logistics network, said this summer it plans to increase its warehouse capacity by 50% before year’s end. By comparison, Amazon’s logistics square footage increased by 15% last year.

Besides the new Berks County facility in Upper Bern, Amazon next year expects to add two more large fulfillment centers in Greater Philadelphia – a 1.25-million-square-foot distribution center in Carneys Point, New Jersey, and an 820,000-square-foot distribution center at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware. Those fulfillment centers will employ 800 and 1,000 workers, respectively.

Research conducted by the Puget Sound Business Journal, a sister publication of the Philadelphia Business Journal, shows the company has at least 70 logistics facilities in development across the U.S.

Eleven days after announcing plans for two new fulfillment centers in Kansas City on Oct. 16, Amazon said it will open a 700,000-square-foot fulfillment center in the greater Omaha, Nebraska, area employing 1,000 full-time workers. Three days after that, on Oct. 30, the company said it’s building a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Fargo, North Dakota, Amazon’s first in the state, which will open in 2021 and bring 500 full-time jobs.

The pandemic is hobbling brick-and-mortar retail and driving up sales online, creating widespread demand for warehouse capacity among e-commerce companies.

Amazon is buying or leasing much of it.

That Amazon, the world’s second biggest retailer after Walmart, is investing so heavily in warehouse space suggests the company believes consumers’ rapid adoption of online shopping will stick beyond the pandemic. More still, by moving aggressively to place more distribution hubs near consumers’ homes, Amazon is getting closer to its ultimate goal of dropping packages on doorsteps within a day or even hours.

“I think this is a big opportunity for Amazon,” said Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. “They’ve got big plans.”

Warehouses built to fulfill online orders need to be three times bigger than traditional warehouses, according to a report from Turner & Townsend, the United Kingdom-based investment advisory with expertise in warehouse logistics. That’s because e-commerce operations sell a wide range of products, and workers need to be able to easily get to those products, the report said.

Amazon’s sorting centers are highly automated with advanced robotics helping to sort and pick packages. Earlier this year, the company said that collectively those facilities can ship as many as 1 million packages in a day. That number rises with each new warehouse that comes online. And each of those Amazon delivery vans you see on the road — also ever increasing in number with each new distribution center — makes as many as 180 stops in a single shift. That’s one delivery every 2.6 minutes.

Taking those numbers into account, the demand consumers have placed on Amazon this year is nothing less than exponential.

Cost of a warehouse empire

Meanwhile, as Amazon devours more and more real estate, the supply of coveted warehouse space is drying up and costs are rising.

In a report this summer, real estate services firm said it expects e-commerce sales to hit $1.5 trillion by 2025, which would increase the demand for warehouse space by 1 billion square feet.

Before the pandemic, as much as 35% of its industrial leasing involved e-commerce. That number has climbed to 50% this year.

Experts say e-commerce companies are starting to get creative and are considering setting up distribution centers in underground parking lots or even creating pop-up distribution hubs.

“Our research shows that the fierce competition for warehousing space has been driven up by costs in the dominant global industrial markets,” a Turner & Townsend report said.

In an indication of how involved Amazon is in the industrial real estate market, several logistics property consultants declined to comment for this story because Amazon is a client.

Amazon has issued news releases this year announcing only about a half-dozen of the projects. Its plans typically cross the public’s eye via loose-lipped real estate brokers, government planning meetings and reporters digging through public records.

In the Philadelphia region, Amazon this year has also leased or is negotiating to lease warehouse buildings totaling more than 1.2 million square feet, sources have told the Philadelphia Business Journal. Those warehouses are:

  • A 283,000-square-foot building at 2400 Weccacoe Ave. in Philadelphia;
  • A 496,000-square-foot building at 1250 Forest Parkway in West Deptford, New Jersey;
  • A 235,240-square-foot building at 3750 State Rd. in Bensalem;
  • A 207,500-square-foot building at 3025 Meetinghouse Road in Philadelphia.

Amazon is reaping record profits during the pandemic as other sectors of the economy have declined. That means the company has more than enough capital to outspend its competition on warehouse space.

In this year’s second quarter alone, Amazon invested more than $9 billion in fulfillment, transportation and AWS capital projects.

Secrets of rapid expansion

How can the company get these facilities up and running so quickly? Amazon owns at most only 4% of its warehouse space and leases the rest, Penfield said.

“So they can expand pretty fast,” he said.

The company, Penfield said, has the help of a network of partners, including construction companies, logistics consultants and a handful of big landlords to rush the projects to completion.

Amazon’s rapid expansion in the Philadelphia region and elsewhere is even driving a new, niche area for real estate investment as firms are increasingly buying buildings or land near where Amazon leases distribution space to provide parking for its fleet of delivery trucks.

Amazon has plenty of competition from major retailers like Walmart and Target, which have also posted big e-commerce gains during the pandemic.

Target’s online sales skyrocketed 195% year over year in its most recent quarter. Walmart’s and Home Depot’s e-commerce businesses nearly doubled.

Walmart, with its big-box stores scattered across small towns and suburbs, is better positioned to reach consumers’ homes more quickly than Amazon, Penfield said.

Amazon is rumored to be trying to close that gap by placing distribution centers inside shopping malls, taking over the abandoned hulks of dead anchor tenants. Shopping malls are alluring as distribution hubs because they are close to suburban homes, which Amazon’s drivers could reach faster.

A recent Morgan Stanley report said U.S. e-commerce is expected to grow this year by 38%. Before Covid, it had been expected to grow 13%. That means the pandemic vaulted e-commerce growth three years ahead of projections.

E-commerce now represents 24.5% penetration of total adjusted retail sales, according to the Morgan Stanley report, and 74% of people now shopping online started on Amazon.

Earlier this year Amazon was so overwhelmed with orders its supply chain bogged down, and shipping times for items the company didn’t deem “essential” slipped from a few days to a month or more.

All of this rapid growth comes with risks for Amazon, Penfield said, particularly when it comes to quality control. All of those tens of thousands of new hires have to be trained — and quickly, he noted. That’s no small task.

“You’ve got to make sure they understand your processes,” Penfield said. “And so a lot of times when you see this type of growth, usually there’s issues, such as misshipments. The quality is going to be an issue, and they’re going to really have to figure out how to manage that to make sure they can grow that quickly.”

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia and Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

TJ Maxx Parent Company Signs Lease for Build-to-Suit Distribution Center in Philadelphia

The parent company to TJ Maxx, HomeGoods and Marshalls has signed a long-term lease on a proposed 300,000-square-foot building in Northeast Philadelphia that will be developed for the company.

Once built, TJX Cos. will use the building at 9801 Blue Grass Road to expand it local warehouse-distribution operations, according to market sources. The company has maintained a 1.015-million-square-foot distribution center at 2760 Red Lion Road since 2001.

The Blue Grass Road property is part of a bygone era in Philadelphia. Hostess Brands Inc. once made Twinkies at the property and ceased operations there in 2012. A vacant 446,000-square-foot food processing facility on the site was bought in 2013 and paid $62.5 million for the real estate and other Hostess property, such as machines and equipment, at a bankruptcy auction.

The bakery had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2012 but ended up selling off its brands and ceasing operations.

The acquisition totaled 3 million square feet, and the largest of the properties in that portfolio was the building at 9801 Blue Grass.

The property was originally constructed in the mid-1960s for Acme Supermarkets. The building on the site will eventually be razed to make way for the new distribution center.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia and Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Developer Plans Redevelopment of Eastern Seaboard’s Largest Refinery Site into Massive Industrial Park

The 1,300-Acre Refinery Site Could Become Up to 15 Million Square Feet of Commercial Buildings

Hilco Redevelopment Partners said it plans to demolish and redevelop the East Coast’s oldest and largest oil refinery into what could be one of the largest additions of industrial real estate ever in Philadelphia, in a long-term project that could add space amounting to almost 3% of the city’s existing inventory.

The company, the real estate development unit of financial services company Hilco Global, announced a multibillion-dollar plan to decommission, demolish and redevelop the 1,300-acre site that operated for roughly 150 years as an oil refinery until Philadelphia Energy Solutions closed it last year.

The developer said it plans to build a distribution and logistics hub that would bring between 13 million and 15 million square feet of logistics space to the city in phases over several years. In all, the project could add as much as 2.9% more industrial space to the market, which totals about 557 million square feet of industrial real estate now, according to CoStar.

For context, developers completed about 15 million square feet of industrial projects across Philadelphia during all of 2016, 2017, and 2018.

The logistics park is expected to target major national and international companies looking to expand their distribution networks on the East Coast and would employ thousands of workers on-site when complete.

Hilco is undergoing an environmental clean-up of the site, which closed last year after a massive explosion at the facility led Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the operator of the refinery, to declare bankruptcy.

The explosion damaged a significant portion of the campus and led Philadelphia Energy Solutions to lay off more than 1,000 workers before it shut down.

Hilco bought the refinery in June for $225.5 million at bankruptcy court, according to a previous statement from the company. According to a city report last year, the site has the “most permissible industrial zoning category” and would allow for a wide range of industrial uses.

To accommodate a proposed development schedule, HRP said its plan is expected to be conducted in phases that allow portions of the site to be decommissioned and remediated as others are being redeveloped concurrently.

“Our plan is to transform the site into a commercial hub to be shared by dozens of world-class companies that will benefit from Philadelphia’s diverse workforce and strategic location with an environmentally responsible infrastructure that will be great for all Philadelphians,” Hilco’s CEO, Roberto Perez, said in the earlier statement.

The site, known in Philadelphia as the PES refinery, is a storied one that largely defined Philadelphia’s port region for the nearly 150 years it was in operation. The site was first developed into a refinery by Atlantic Refining Co. in 1870, and would host the refineries of some of the nation’s oldest oil and gas companies, including Gulf Oil Corp. and Sunoco.

In terms of its total acreage, the refinery site is the largest such refinery on the Eastern Seaboard. At its peak, it processed roughly 355,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Philadelphia has strong fundamentals as a logistics destination, though, and this development could provide a strong surge of momentum in making the city an East Coast distribution hub.

The city’s industrial sector is the only commercial real estate sector that has not experienced a leasing slowdown throughout the coronavirus pandemic, according to CoStar research. Philadelphia’s industrial vacancy rate is just 5.3%, which is a 25-year low for the city.

And perhaps most importantly, Philadelphia sits squarely between New York City and Washington, D.C., “right in the middle of the largest region of purchasing power in the western hemisphere,” Adrian Ponsen, director of market analytics for CoStar Group in Philadelphia, writes in a recent report.

In recent months, top e-commerce retailers including Target, Amazon, Houston-based Utopia Fulfillment and the produce delivery service Misfits Markets have expanded their distribution footprints in Philadelphia, according to CoStar research.

*Article courtesy of CoStar

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia and Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Reading Is the Industrial Market to Watch in Central Pennsylvania Amid Pandemic

The industrial market in Pennsylvania, finds itself in a precarious position entering the fourth quarter of 2020, and things could improve or deteriorate rapidly.

The market’s vacancies are close to 13.5%, largely due to a surge of construction over the past five years. Developers have brought more than 7 million square feet online during that time, but demand hasn’t kept pace until very recently.

Incredibly, 2020 has been one of the strongest years of industrial demand in Philadelphia’s history. Since January, more than 2.1 million square feet has been absorbed, which is more demand than the market saw in the previous five years combined. A substantial chunk of this space was filled by Amazon, which filled more than 1 million square feet at the 78 Trade Center in the first quarter.

Amazon is a logistics demand generator by itself, but the real draw in Pennsylvania is Interstate 78, which is Pennsylvania’s main trade artery. Recent development has been centered around access to it, and Reading lies midway between Harrisburg and Lehigh Valley, two of the commonwealth’s most prominent distribution nodes.

But those markets offer something Reading does not: direct access to a north/south interstate. This appears to have had some limiting factor on local industrial demand. Pre-2020, Reading’s absorption levels were routinely dwarfed by its prominent neighbors, and many of the largest projects to deliver in the past five years still sit vacant.

This problem might prove negligible in the near future as we undergo a massive shift in consumer spending habits. The coronavirus has accelerated the growth of e-commerce tremendously, with census data showing that online shopping has nearly doubled in the past four quarters. CoStar’s latest national data shows that industrial leasing activity has returned with a roar, with national absorption closing at some of the highest levels in years.

If consumers continue shopping online boosting demand for logistics hubs across the country, Philadelphia’s pain could be very short-lived. The strong absorption seen this year could indicate that this is in the future.

But there’s several million square feet of speculative space underway in Lehigh Valley, which offers a superior location. There are also millions of square feet of space underway in the Philadelphia and northern New Jersey markets, which could siphon demand away from Berks County as well.

This market sits on a knife’s edge and for those in Central Pennsylvania interested in industrial properties, its progress or lack thereof, will be worth monitoring in the coming months.

*Article courtesy of CoStar

For more information about Philly or Reading Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia and Reading or about any other Reading and Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia and Reading commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia and Reading commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia and Reading commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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Exeter Property Group buys Bucks County industrial portfolio

A partnership between affiliates of Endurance Real Estate Group and Thackeray Partners sold an industrial portfolio in Bucks County for $18 million to Exeter Property Group.

The Endurance venture bought the four-building, 240,358-square-foot complex at the Penn Warner Industrial Park in Fairless Hills in early 2018 for $10.8 million, or $45 a square foot, from Crow Holdings. Endurance had also owned the buildings – located at 199, 270, 279 and 290 Canal Road – between 2003 and 2007.

The portfolio is in proximity to several highways including I-95, I-195 and the New Jersey Turnpike and was fully occupied at the time of the most recent sale.

Exeter is a global real estate company based in Conshohocken and owns industrial and office properties.
The Endurance-Thackeray partnership has recently been selling off some of its other holdings. Earlier this year it parted ways with a nearly 300,000-square-foot warehouse in South Jersey for $32.2 million, more than three times what the venture paid for the property in 2017.

Black Creek Group, a Denver real estate firm that has been growing its Philadelphia-area footprint, was the buyer of that 292,466-square-foot building at 2000 Bishops Gate Blvd. in Mount Laurel.

Late last year, Endurance-Thackeray sold a five-building industrial portfolio in King of Prussia totaling 292,110 square feet at 201 and 221 King Manor Dr. and 741, 780 and 820 Third Ave. for $32 million. The buyer was again Black Creek, according to property records. When Endurance bought that portfolio, it was 72% occupied. It made a series of upgrades, and the portfolio was 95% leased at the time of sale.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia or about any other Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Amazon’s Philadelphia-area leasing spree continues

Amazon's Philadelphia-area leasing spree continues

Amazon.com Inc. has leased a 283,000-square-foot building in Philadelphia as part of its web of last-mile distribution centers around the region.

The company has signed a deal to occupy 2400 Weccacoe Ave. in South Philadelphia, according to sources. The building had once been occupied Hyundai Rotem, a South Korean company that made train cars for SEPTA.

The lease adds to Seattle-based Amazon’s sites it has been leasing over the last year across the region as it builds a last-mile distribution network. It also highlights how old industrial site, obsolete office buildings and manufacturing structures are finding new life in the age of ecommerce.

In the case of 2400 Weccacoe, the building had been used to build rail cars for SEPTA and other transit agencies. Prior to that, Unique Industries, a manufacturer of party supplies, used the structure for its operations.

In another example, Atlanta-based Ardent Cos. bought an old trolley car shed at 2501-2561 N. 15th St. in Philadelphia and Novaya Foxfield Industrial purchased a shuttered chemical plant on 29 acres at 900 River Road in Upper Merion to develop into a last-mile distribution centers.

An affiliate of Wharton Equity Partners along with Walton Street Capital Partners acquired 2400 Weccacoe for $16.75 million last September, according to property records. It sits on 13.5 acres and was vacant at the time the Wharton partnership bought it. Two acres adjacent to the site were later bought to provide more space for parking.

Wharton launched a $10 million redevelopment of the building that included tearing out the rail beds, installing a new roof, leveling interior floors, and upgrading loading docks among other upgrades. The renovations were part of the real estate company’s plans to seize on market forces catering to the growth of online retail. The property has access to Interstates 95 and 76, Philadelphia International Airport, PhilaPort and the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal. It is also adjacent to Center City.

A representative from Wharton declined comment. Amazon did not return a request for comment.

Wharton rebranded 2400 Weccacoe as SoPhi Logistics Center and sought to attract tenants who want a location for last-mile deliveries. UPS has for years operated a distribution center adjacent to the property.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMAZN) over the last few years has added locations in King of Prussia, Lansdale, Langhorne and near the Philadelphia International Airport. In addition, Amazon leased earlier this year 1250 Forest Parkway in West Deptford, N.J. That 496,000-square-foot building had been a former distribution center for Nine West. The company is also in negotiations to lease 235,240 square feet in Bensalem.

Amazon expects to open a new 820,000-square-foot distribution center in Wilmington, Delaware, in time for the holiday shopping season. The company expects to hire 1,000 new workers to staff the built-to-suit development planned for a former General Motors plant on Boxwood Road.

The company has been leasing locations closer to dense population centers as it continues to expand its popular two-day Prime shipping, but also same-day delivery.

Amazon distribution centers often employ several hundred, if not several thousand people.

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia or about any other Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Cracks Emerge in Philadelphia’s Industrial Market

Philadelphia industrial brokers and investors are noticeably less rattled by the coronavirus’ economic shock than their counterparts who specialize in the office or retail sectors. And that is with good reason. 

The local industrial market is entering the current crisis with tighter vacancies than those achieved even during the best years of economic boom of the mid-2000s and the late 1990s. Meanwhile, new tenant demand for logistics space in particular has surged past demand growth in the office and retail markets over the past four years. 

This all comes as retailers and e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, increasingly compete for faster home delivery options. To facilitate faster deliveries, these firms have been storing more goods in local distribution centers that are closer to population centers. Now that fears of contracting the coronavirus are driving more consumers to order goods for home delivery rather than venturing out to go shopping, these secular shifts benefiting distribution centers are likely to accelerate.

In the short term however, Philly’s industrial market is also staring down one of the region’s worst economic downturns in decades.

In April alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ warehousing and storage sector shed almost 15,000 jobs (or 9% of its total staff) across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Meanwhile, CoStar data shows that at the national level, industrial landlords and brokers have been consistently pulling down advertised rents on their space listings since late February. 

Some of the most at-risk properties are those housing distribution operations of high-risk retailers, such as Sears, Kmart and Office Depot, which have struggled to adapt to the consumer shift to online shopping. Office Depot, for example, has already announced plans to close its 185,000-square-foot facility in Lower Bucks County. 

But with the overall market expected to remain tight even after vacancies rise in 2020, many at-risk properties will likely present viable targets for value-add investors. 

CoStar’s latest market overview video covers these trends, highlighting near-term risks across the market, many of which will likely present long-term opportunities. 

*Article courtesy of CoStar News

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia or about any other Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Local Company Buys Philadelphia Industrial Complex to Expand Business

A local private company has purchased a 330,000-square-foot industrial complex at 700 Ramona Ave. in Philadelphia for $8.5 million, or about $26 per square foot.

The buyer purchased the property to utilize the site as an expansion of their existing business.

The property consists of two large industrial buildings on approximately 14.5 acres and provides access to Route 1 Roosevelt Expressway and I-95.

*Article courtesy of CoStar News

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia or about any other Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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

Exclusive: DHL signs big lease as Northeast Philadelphia industrial market stays hot

NorthPoint Development has signed a lease for a division of DHL International to occupy a 465,000-square-foot industrial building it is constructing at 11601 Roosevelt Blvd., a project that is helping to reshape Northeast Philadelphia into as a regional distribution market. 

KLS Logistics, of which DHL is a part, signed a long-term deal on the building and “chose this location in order to provide the best service for our customers to the five-county area in southeastern Pennsylvania,” said Daniel McGrath, a spokesman at DHL. 

McGrath declined to provide additional details such as how many jobs the company might create at the facility. 

Construction of the building has been halted as a result of a mandate by Gov. Tom Wolf to cease construction of all non-essential projects during the pandemic. It couldn’t be determined when the project will be completed. 

The Roosevelt Boulevard project is among several other industrial developments totaling three million square feet that are in various stages in Northeast Philadelphia. Once completed, they will increase the size of the submarket to 20 million square feet from 17 million square feet.

Other projects in the works include: 

  • A 1-million-square foot facility that is planned and expected to be built on 138 acres at One Red Lion Road. UPS will occupy the site, which had once been part of the Budd Co. property. Once completed, it will be the largest industrial building in Northeast Philadelphia;
  • Brandywine Realty Trust has plans for 680,000 square feet in two buildings at 15000 Roosevelt Blvd.;
  • At 11501 Roosevelt Blvd., NorthPoint is renovating a 230,000-square-foot building and has leased a portion of it to a self storage company;
  • At 2900 Grant Ave., Crow Holdings of Dallas is knocking down a 140,000-square-foot building to make way for a proposed 400,000-square-foot building to be constructed on speculation;
  • A new 200,000-square-foot building at 3025 Meetinghouse Road was completed late last year and available. Black Creek Holdings bought it for $25.6 million; and 
  • First Industrial Realty Trust is developing on speculation a 100,000-square-foot building at 2021 Woodhaven Road. 

Companies prefer new warehouse-distribution centers with higher clearances and better loading areas for tractor trailers. 

Northeast Philadelphia’s proximity to the city as well other parts of the region and access to major highways such as Interstate 95, Route 1 and the turnpikes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey also make it an ideal location for warehouse-distribution centers. Labor and access to mass transit also make it attractive. 

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philly Industrial space for sale or lease in Philadelphia or about any other Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, property management services, and marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.

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