This summer Philadelphia’s Center City office market saw a surge of activity. Huge sums of money were lost.
“I don’t know if cautious optimism is the right word, but there is a feeling that there is a way to work our way through this,” said Tom Weitzel, JLL’s managing director in Philadelphia. “This is not good, this is not easy, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”The early pandemic enthusiasm for the idea of converting vacant office space into housing cooled as the realities of the concept became clear. Many office towers haveto allow for easy conversion.
A couple days after the Bourse purchase, PMC Property Group acquired Three Parkway at a quarter of its assessed value,. The former headquarters of the Pennwalt Corp. will remain half office space, while the other half of the 20-story building will be converted into 175 apartments. Feibush cut the office suites into smaller chunks between 3,000 and 6,000 square feet to appeal to smaller users, and lowered the rents to $23-$25 a square foot.