Corporate Suites, a New York Co-working Operator, Takes Space at 123 S. Broad

Corporate Suites, a coworking operator based in New York, has signed a 15-year lease on 24,000 square feet at 123 S. Broad St. in Center City, making its first foray into Philadelphia.

The firm will occupy the 15th floor of the office building and expects to be in operation by September.

Though co-working struggled during the pandemic with some operators such as WeWork closing locations and others, such as Regus, filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on some spaces it leased, there is a belief coworking will regain some of its popularity as people seek alternatives to working from home as the pandemic dissipates.

SSH Real Estate, which owns 123 S. Broad, felt the building was lacking in not having a coworking tenant and had sought Corporate Suites as a tenant.

“The deal was in the works early last year but was delayed because of the coronavirus,” said Pete Soens, a partner at SSH Real Estate.

When talks picked back up, it became apparent to Soens that certain types of coworking will be in high demand as people get back to in-person work.

“We like their business model,” Soens said. “It’s a different model than WeWork. It’s more for professionals, small companies and individuals. We think with the location of 123 across from the Union League and near City Hall, we think the business professional will be drawn to it.”

The shape of the floor that Corporate Suites will occupy will enable it to provide more private offices, small suites, and some coworking areas versus a completely open office plan, Soens said.

The Corporate Suites model includes short-term leases on fully furnished suites and provides conference rooms and office services. SSH is anticipating the firm could eventually expand into another floor and doubling in size.

SSH plans to leverage Corporate Suites services as an amenity for some of the smaller tenants it has in the building and even look to capture some of those who use the space and may later need formal office space.

With this lease, 123 S. Broad reaches 70% occupancy as it chips away at about 150,000 square feet of space vacated by Wells Fargo.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

AmerisourceBergen Readies for Summer Move to New HQ at Sora West in Conshohocken

As the development of office component of Sora West in Conshohocken draws to a completion over the next several months, AmerisourceBergen Corp. has already begun preparing for its move into its new headquarters this summer.

As such, the Fortune 50 pharmaceutical distributor will join a growing list of companies that have faced the ordeal of relocating into new offices during a pandemic – Toll Brothers Inc., Macquarie, Fisher Phillips — or just weeks before employees were sent to work from home last March as in the case of Signant Health in Blue Bell.

Some firms preparing to move into new headquarters, such as Hamilton Lane, have already decided they don’t need as much space as anticipated. In October 2019, Hamilton Lane signed a lease to occupy 130,000 square feet at Seven Tower Bridge, which is under construction in Conshohocken. Last summer, it had decided to shed one of those floors and expects to occupy about 100,000 square feet.

New spaces has also meant an opportunity to reimagine and reconfigure portions of their new offices to accommodate changes brought on by the coronavirus. Many of these alterations, which were foreign just a year ago, have now become commonly accepted and expected.

At the groundbreaking of its new $200 million headquarters at 2222 Market St. last September, Morgan Lewis executives confirmed the law firm remained committed to the building but would evaluate the interior design through a new lens brought on by the coronavirus and employees working from home.

In the case of AmerisourceBergen, there are “some in-office experiences that may differ from our original plans prior to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Lauren Esposito, spokeswoman at the company, in an email.

At its new 11-story, 429,122-square-foot building at 125 E. Elm St., the company is installing furniture, products and coverings that can be easily cleaned and disinfected, and have picked fabrics that can be bleached as needed, Esposito said. Offices and cubicles will be “safely” spaced and the company intends to clean, every day on an hourly basis, all high-touch points as part of a new, standard office protocols.

The company also put in touch-free appliances, such as drinking dispensers, soap machines and water faucets.

“We are using science and data to make decisions and validate recommendations and procedures,” she said. “We rely on CDC and WHO guidelines as guidance continues to evolve. We have also engaged an external medical advisor to provide an objective interpretation of these guidelines to help us make the right decisions for our company.”

As originally planned, AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC) intends to occupy the entire building but it will carve out a “small portion” of the space that will not have any offices and will be used as needed “to keep our employees comfortable, healthy and safe.” About 1,500 employees are expected to work out of the building.

In the meantime, the company continues to have its employees work remotely here and across its other offices and is taking a measured approach to returning to physical offices including at its new home in Conshohocken.

“While we remain hopeful that we can return to the office this summer, we must continue to work within a fluid timeline while we reassess the multiple factors that go into a phased re-entry plan across the enterprise in order to keep our employees safe,” Esposito said.

In addition to AmerisourceBergen’s offices, Sora West will include a new hotel and two restaurants. Keystone Property Group, the developer, officially broke ground on the project in April 2019 and this month moved forward with construction of the hotel.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

Brandywine Expects to Break Ground on $287M Schuylkill Yards Building in March

Brandywine Realty Trust has secured two partners — one an undisclosed global institutional investor — on the development of a $287 million project at Schuylkill Yards and is making progress on its lease negotiations with Dechert at Cira Centre.

The Philadelphia real estate investment trust said Dechert, one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms, is in discussions to occupy 110,000 square feet in the upper floors of Cira Centre. The firm currently occupies around 240,000 square feet space in the office tower and is scheduled to give some of its space back this year, Brandywine executives said during a fourth quarter conference call on Wednesday.

Brandywine also said it has a life sciences incubator that will occupy several floors in Cira Centre it is converting into lab space. Cira Centre recently lost BakerHostetler as a tenant. The law firm, which had 80,000 square feet, is relocating to 1735 Market St. in Center City.

Brandywine continues to shift its focus more on life sciences space and the new building at Schuylkill Yards is part of that effort. The project, referred to as the West Tower at Schuylkill Yards, will rise at 3025 John F. Kennedy Blvd. The site is adjacent to Amtrak’s 30th Street Station.

The 570,000-square-foot project involves 326 apartments and 200,000 square feet of life sciences space as well as 29,000 square feet of amenity space and 9,000 square feet of retail space. In the company’s conference call on Wednesday, executives said that it has 300,000 square feet of prospective tenants for the office-lab space in the new building and is tracking other life sciences tenants that could lead to potentially kicking off another building at Schuylkill Yards this year. The company has designed a $300 million, 500,000-square-foot life sciences building at 3151 Market St.

Gotham Organization, a New York real estate company that has built apartments and commercial space, will partner with Brandywine (NYSE: BDN) on the multifamily portion of the new Schuylkill Yards’ project. Brandywine expects to break ground next month and complete the building by October 2023.

Among other highlights from its four quarter, Brandywine paid in late November $9.7 million for a 119,763-square-foot office building at 1505-11 Race St. in Philadelphia. The property is part of a portfolio of buildings up for sale that used to be occupied by Hahnemann University Hospital. The building is fully occupied and the company said it intends to redevelop the building once the tenant vacates.

In Radnor, it bought for $20.3 million a 169,834-square-foot office building at 250 King of Prussia Road. The building was purchased from Penn Medicine, which relocated those operations to a newly constructed building across the street. Brandywine expects to begin redevelopment of the King of Prussia Road building this year.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

2000 Market Wraps Up $12M in Renovations

Nahla Capital has completed $12 million in interior and exterior renovations to 2000 Market St. and signed a handful of lease renewals at the Center City office building.

“We have had good momentum even during the pandemic,” said P.J. Van Hoof, senior associate at Nahla Capital. “We had more smaller tenants that were expiring and with those tenants, we have been solving with short-term solutions.”

It’s not uncommon for tenants not to make long-term leasing decisions during the pandemic but rather strike a short-term renewal to provide it with some time to figure out its space needs in the future. Hamburg Süd, a global shipping company located in the building for the last 10 years, was one of the tenants that renewed its lease but also downsized. It signed a five-year deal on 14,295 square feet, shrinking from 22,000 square feet.

Duff & Phelps, a financial consulting firm, exercised an option to expand by 3,000 square feet, growing to 17,000 square feet from 14,000 square feet. The company had renewed for seven years at the end of 2019.

Medtrics Lab, a digital health company, signed a new, three-year lease on 2,600 square feet. InnovAge Life, which provides medical care to seniors, renewed its lease on 3,624 square feet for 24 months, and Toppan Merrill, a communications company, renewed for 25 months on 4,209 square feet. The building is 90% leased.

The office market has fluctuated since last March with some tenants willing to make leasing commitments but many deciding to delay those decisions.

Nahla partnered with the merchant banking division of Goldman Sachs to buy 2000 Market for $126.4 million in July 2018. The 29-story, 665,649-square-foot office building was built in 1973 and, after purchasing the tower, Nahla undertook a series of renovations. It installed four new cooling towers, upgraded the elevators, fire alarm and security systems and restored the façade.

The lobby was also renovated. That project was supposed to have begun last March but was delayed because of the pandemic. Once the project ramped up two months later, work was accelerated since it could be conducted throughout the day with little disruption since most tenants still have employees working from home.

Nahla retained architectural firm Soulis & Berlic to design the space so that an illuminated wall of Nestos marble panels is a focal point. The lobby has new wood paneled elevator banks, lighting and seating areas and is much more contemporary.

Renovations to the building’s shared conference facility are underway as is the installation of ultra-violet duct cleaning technology.

With the renovations nearly completed and the occupancy steady, Nahla doesn’t plan to sell the building at this point. “Our next big push is to focus on leasing,” Van Hoof said. “Though 90% is a healthy occupancy, we think there is still room to improve the building.”

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

BakerHostetler Signs Deal to Move Philadelphia Office

BakerHostetler has signed a 16-year lease to relocate its Philadelphia offices from Cira Centre in University City to BNY Mellon Center at 1735 Market St. in the Central Business District.

The Cleveland-based law firm leased 45,121 square feet, a reduction from the 80,000 square feet it had occupied at Cira Centre. BakerHostetler’s lease was scheduled to expire this year at the Brandywine Realty Trust-owned building. In 2014, the law firm merged with Woodcock Washburn, which was one of Cira Centre’s original tenants, and inherited its office space.

BakerHostetler, which has 65 attorneys in Philadelphia, is the second law firm in recent weeks to sign a long-term lease. Blank Rome, one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms, committed to a new 16-year lease on space in the Center City building where it currently resides — One Logan Square, which is also owned by Brandywine Realty.

BakerHostetler was one of two prominent Philadelphia law firm tenants at Cira Centre in the market and exploring what to do once their leases expired at the office building. Dechert is the other firm.

Dechert, which occupies around 240,000 square feet at Cira Centre, has been looking for new office space for nearly two years. The firm did sign last year a lease on 34,987 square feet at 1735 Market, though that was just one part of its overall space strategy.

BakerHostetler will occupy floors 31 and 32 at 1735 Market and its lease brings the 51-story, 1.3-million-square-foot office tower up to 90% occupied. Unlike Blank Rome’s new lease that built in options to contract the amount of space it occupies, the BakerHostetler deal includes expansion options.

The law firm is expected to relocate into the building later this year.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

Wanamaker Reckoning: Tenants Set to Vacate More Than Half of Office Space at Center City Landmark

The Wanamaker building is facing 500,000 square feet of vacant space after Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia exercised an option to terminate its lease at the building and two other tenants decided to move out.

The 1.4-million-square-foot building at 100 Penn Square East in Center City has 950,000 square feet of office space and the remainder is retail space occupied by Macy’s. With those tenant defections, the building faces having more than half of its office space vacant.

The vacancies come at a point when corporations are reevaluating their office space needs during the pandemic and delaying decisions on long-term leases. In spite of those challenges, there is hope that demand for space by life sciences companies may fill some of gaps left in Wanamaker and other Center City buildings.

Life sciences companies are increasingly in the market looking for office-lab space and the conversion of existing office space to accommodate these tenants is being considered by many downtown landlords. Though expensive, the cost to convert space is less and faster than ground-up development.

A recent report pegs the amount of space being sought by life sciences companies within Philadelphia at nearly 725,000 square feet, which is roughly double the amount since the beginning of the year.

CHOP occupies 300,000 square feet at the Wanamaker and expanded by more than 50,000 square feet last year.

CHOP said it is reevaluating its office space in preparation for a post-Covid world and is in discussions to “identify new lease terms.”

“We are committed to creating work environments that advance our mission, make the best use of our resources and enable our employees to meet and collaborate according to their needs,” CHOP said in a statement.

CHOP has several development projects in various stages that could eventually shift employees from Wanamaker closer to the hospital’s main campus in University City.

Two agencies within the General Services Administration were the other defections from Wanamaker. The Army Corps of Engineers, which had 113,000 square feet, and Housing and Urban Development, which occupied 119,000 square feet, have signed a lease to occupy the former Environmental Protection Agency space at 1650 Arch St.

Wanamaker was purchased in 2017 in a $200 million deal, the company was aware of the potential for CHOP and the GSA to move on from the building. That risk corresponded with the company’s plans to move forward with a $30 million renovation of the building that included updating the lobby and other common areas, improving the courtyard and adding several amenities including Mindspace, a coworking operator that signed a lease on 42,000 square feet.

The strategy involved completing those improvements in an attempt to bring Wanamaker up to Class A space and increase rents by $10 a square foot.

The space will come available between 2021 and 2023, which will purportedly be post-pandemic. By then, most companies will return to making long-term decisions on their office space needs and providing some wiggle room before the space no longer has a tenant paying rent.

The size of the floorplates, ceiling heights and other characteristics appear to accommodate such conversions. The company also needs to consider how that might work with other tenants in the building.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

$8M Redevelopment Planned in South Kensington as Buyer Seeks ‘Critical Mass’ in Neighborhood

A Charlotte real estate firm has paid $9.45 million for a 78,000-square-foot building at 1400 N. Howard St. in Philadelphia and plans to invest another $8 million to redevelop it.

While the Charlotte real estate firm owns several High Street retail properties near Rittenhouse Square including 1704 Walnut St., it also has a growing presence in the area around the South Kensington neighborhood where it bought the vacant North Howard Street property.

So far the firm spent a total of $31 million buying properties in the Kensington and Fishtown sections of the city. The company owns the building at 1002 Canal St. that housed the now closed Goose Island Brewhouse, 1100 N. Front St. where Love & Honey Fried Chicken is located, and a commercial condominium at 1405 Frankford Ave.

The company prefers to buy in well-established neighborhoods and acquire properties in which it can launch adaptive reuse projects. In April 2019, the company closed an $800 million fund that is being deployed to buy urban and infill neighborhood locations across the country.

Philadelphia is among those cities it is targeting and, aside from Rittenhouse Square, it’s drawn to the Fishtown-Kensington area.

The Howard Street property is a single-story building that encompasses an entire city block. Though it has an industrial past, the building was rezoned for residential use. At one point, a townhouse development was proposed by the previous owner but that never materialized.

The firm was granted new commercial zoning by the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment that will allow for the company to follow through on its plan to redevelop the building into retail and office space. The office portion would take up about 80% of the building, leaving the remainder for retail use.

While the restaurant and retail scene has grown in recent years along Frankford Avenue, the office market in that area is nascent. The company encouraged by the presence of companies such as La Colombe and Honeygrow, which not only have retail operations in the area but also their respective corporate offices. Kracke believes there are companies like La Colombe and Honeygrow that would prefer to have their offices be in a neighborhood rather than Center City.

Rents for the office space are projected to range from the high $20s a square foot to the low $30s.

The Charlotte Firm plans to begin construction next summer and expects to complete the project in 2022.

*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

Axalta to Close Center City Headquarters Office

Axlata Coating Systems Ltd. plans to close its Center City global headquarters office and move out of the 36,000 square feet it has occupied at Two Commerce Square for the last seven years.

Employees working out of Philadelphia will relocate to either its 55,000-square-foot North American headquarters off Applied Bank Way in Glen Mills or its 175,000-square-foot research facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The decision to close its Center City office comes after the company went through a restructuring over the summer that led it to realign its real estate and other operations. The restructuring will result in 550 job cuts over the next two years as part of plan to generate $50 million in savings amid economic pressures.

The move out of Center City veers from Axalta’s (NYSE: AXTA) original plans when it spun out of DuPont Inc. in 2013 and moved out of Delaware and deliberately split its global and North American headquarters into two locations.

The company said at the time it wanted to have a distinct location for its global and North American headquarters.The company then decided to place its global headquarters in Commerce Square, saying at the time it preferred an urban setting near mass transit as well as the Philadelphia International Airport. The company then moved its North American headquarters to Glen Mills, contending it was closer to where most employees, who had previously worked at DuPont, live and from where they had been commuting for years.

In that time, the company, which makes coatings that go into paint used on vehicles and other products, went from being privately owned to publicly traded.

Axalta announced in late March that it ended a review of strategic alternatives it began in 2019 to explore a potential sale of the company, saying the impact of the coronavirus on markets was to blame.

Philadelphia office shifts will be completed in mid-2021.

*Article Courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

Suburbs are in Vogue’: Swedesford Road Office Buildings Hit the Market

The properties being marketed are: 656-676 E. Swedesford Road, a two-building complex that totals 147,000 square feet; and the Valley Forge Office Center, which includes 480 E. Swedesford Road, a 49,000-square-foot building, and 500 E. Swedesford Road, a 61,000-square-foot property. No prices have been set for the buildings.

The complex at 656-676 E. Swedesford was renovated of two separate structures in the mid-2000s and connected them with a three-story atrium. The complex is 76% occupied by several small tenants ranging between 5,000 to 10,000 square feet including Global Tax Management and MidLantic Urology.

The two buildings at 480 and 500 E. Swedesford are not physically connected but sit next to each other and are being marketed as a pair. Combined, the buildings are 88% occupied and tenants include Affiliated Distributors and CapGemini. Each occupy 21,000 square feet.

The buildings come on the market at a time when some Center City companies are looking for suburban outposts during the pandemic. In addition, there’s still a lot of equity in the market looking for investments.

The properties may end up having competition. DLL is considering putting its 207,000-square-foot building at the corner of E. Swedesford and Old Eagle School Road up for sale.

The Swedesford Road corridor has attracted investors and tenants in recent years because of its access to amenities such as the King of Prussia Town Center and LifeTime Athletic as well as its access to major arteries. As a result, buildings along the corridor have been able to charge some of the highest rents in the suburban market.

That has also fueled some buildings to trade at steep prices. For example, a 165,000-square-foot office building at 200 N. Warner Road sold last year for $37.85 million. The property last traded in May 2016 when the Cohen partnership bought it for $16.3 million. Bay Colony, a four-building, 249,522-square-foot office complex at 565, 575, 585 and 595 E. Swedesford Road, also traded last year for $58.25 million. It sold for $37.5 million in 2015.

*Article Courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.

Most Brandywine Office Tenants Still at Home as Public Health Issues Stymie Companies

As many as 85% of tenants in one office landlord’s buildings across the country are still working from home, and its executives say large employers are realizing they may have more of a struggle on their hands in getting everyone back than first anticipated.

Brandywine Realty Trust executives are finding that even as some tenant employees are growing annoyed with full-time remote working, the big companies have a laundry list of concerns that they are finding that they can’t manage away.

“The longer this has gone on, the more we are hearing consistently across our office base that they can’t wait to return to the office,” said Jerry Sweeney, CEO of the real estate investment trust, during a conference call to discuss its most recent earnings. However, public policy, mass transit and concerns about liability for employers are holding many companies back, particularly larger firms such as Comcast and Lincoln Financial in Philadelphia, he said.

Seven months into the pandemic in the United States, office landlords with buildings spread across different regions of the country are providing an across-the-board glimpse into the way tenant companies are dealing with having their workers outside the office. As new confirmed coronavirus cases reach daily records around the country, more top executives are facing talking with their landlords about the worsening conditions that are forcing them to write rent checks for buildings they mostly aren’t filling up right now.

Brandywine, which owns about 15 million square feet of space located mostly across Philadelphia, Washington, Virginia and Austin, Texas, reported that just 15% of its U.S. office tenant base has returned to the office. But that percentage is noticeably lower in Austin, where it is one of the city’s biggest office landlords.

Only 8% of Brandywine’s office tenant base in Austin has returned to work in person at the office a full seven months after the pandemic started, according to the office REIT. That percentage is being held down because one of its major office tenants in Austin, IBM, doesn’t plan to send its employees back to its north Austin campus until early next year, Sweeney said.

Without IBM, Brandywine’s Austin’s percentage of office tenants back at the office would be somewhere in the “mid-teens,” Sweeney said. Across its portfolio, the Washington area is seeing the highest percentage of tenants going back to the office at 25%.

Construction on the 25-story 405 Colorado in downtown Austin is expected to be complete early next year. (Brandywine).

Public health guidelines in cities like Philadelphia, where Brandywine is based, are still requiring employees to work remotely when feasible, though Sweeney said about 18% of its tenant base in Philadelphia’s suburbs are back at the office.

Meanwhile, Texas health officials are also encouraging remote work when possible, though the governor has allowed offices to operate at 75% capacity since September.

“Austin, I think, wound up being one of those cities that had opened up early then had some surge issues reduced or retracted back some of that progress and now is on the way back,” Sweeney said.

Even with 85% of its office tenant base mostly still working remotely, tenants are still paying rent. Brandywine collected 99% of its expected office rental income in the third quarter and 97% of its expected rental income in October so far, Sweeney said

Building projects are still moving forward. Brandywine is on track to complete construction of its $116 million office tower in downtown Austin called 405 Colorado early next year. DLA Piper law firm backed out of a lease in the project earlier this year, leaving the tower now just 18.3% preleased months away from delivery. However, Sweeney said there is nearly 200,000 square feet of potential deals in the leasing pipeline for 405 Colorado.

Elsewhere in Austin, Brandywine expects to receive final approvals from the city of Austin for Block A within its broader redevelopment of the 66-acre Broadmoor campus, where IBM is located not far from The Domain, the company said. Block A is expected to consist of a 350,000-square-foot office building and 340 apartments. Overall, the Broadmoor plan calls for a massive mixed-use hub with up to 3.2 million square feet of office space, 2.9 million square feet of residential space, 382,000 square feet of retail space and 284,000 square feet of hotel space.

Brandywine is continuing to develop Schuylkill Yards in Philadelphia with a new life sciences focus. (Brandywine)

In the Philadelphia area, its major development project in the works is Schuylkill Yards, a multiphase, 5.1 million-square-foot mixed-use development. Brandywine completed construction of the Bulletin building there in the second quarter, and it has acquired the leasehold land to develop two mixed-use buildings totaling 1.3 million square feet at 3025 JFK and 3001 JFK, according to its latest earnings update.

Also in Philadelphia in July, Brandywine sold its 30% equity stake in One and Two Commerce Square to an institutional investor for $115 million.

In the Arlington, Virginia, area outside D.C., Brandywine expects to complete construction on a $224 million mixed-use tower, 4040 Wilson, in the first quarter through a joint venture with Shooshan Co. The 22-story building is 62% preleased.

Overall, Brandywine saw its net income spike to $274 million in the third quarter from $6.7 million during the same time last year because of significantly less expenses, but its revenue in the third quarter fell 13% to $126 million compared to $145 million for the quarter last year.

*Article Courtesy of CoStar

For more information about Philadelphia office 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.