Nordstrom Rack expanding with new locations in Exton and Media PA

 By Sam Bixler CoStar Research

Seattle-based fashion retailer Nordstrom, Inc. announced plans to open two of its off-price Nordstrom Rack stores in Eastern Pennsylvania. The new stores are scheduled to open this fall, ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season.

In Exton, Nordstrom Rack leased space in Main Street at Exton, a 652,776-square-foot open-air lifestyle center located off Route 100 in Chester County, owned and managed by Wolfson Group. The retail center includes Walmart, Lidl, Barnes & Noble, Michaels, Sephora, Athleta, Old Navy and Banana Republic.

Nordstrom Rack will also open a 30,000-square-foot store at Promenade at Granite Run, an 844,200-square-foot lifestyle center in Media owned and managed by BET Investments. Located off of Baltimore Pike and Middletown Road, the shopping center includes TJ Maxx, Michaels, Kohl's, Ikea and Boscov's.

Branded as the off-price retail division of Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack offers customers up to 70% off apparel, accessories, beauty products, home decor and shoes from many of the top brands sold at Nordstrom stores, as well as core services like online order pickup for Nordstrom.com and NordstromRack.com.

The Seattle-based retailer operates two Nordstrom stores and seven Nordstrom Rack stores in Pennsylvania. 

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Philadelphia Legal Assistance occupies new office in Center City

 By Lauren Diggs CoStar Research

Philadelphia Legal Assistance, a professional services firm that provides free civil legal services to Philadelphia residents who cannot afford an attorney, recently finalized a lease to relocate its office in Center City Philadelphia.

The firm secured 20,643 square feet on the second and third floors of the Cast Iron Building at 718–720 Arch Street. The deal makes PLA, which was scheduled to take occupancy on January 29, 2026, the largest tenant in the building, joining Vision For Equality, Local Initiatives Support Corp. and building owner AMC Delancey as tenants in the historic office building.

PLA is the second nonprofit to relocate its offices in downtown Philadelphia. Community Legal Services signed a deal late last year to relocate from its longtime home at 1424 Chestnut St. to SSH Real Estate's 123 S Broad St. in Center City Philadelphia.

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Office Demolitions Spiked Across Philadelphia in 2025

 

By Brenda Nguyen CoStar Analytics

Office demolitions across Philadelphia surged over the past year to their highest level in nearly a decade. Approximately 1.4 million square feet of office space was cleared from the market inventory as developers accelerated efforts to repurpose outdated and obsolete buildings. 

This culling of underutilized buildings is taking place amid continued softness in the office sector. Office availability has long hovered in double digits since before the pandemic, a symptom of the overbuilding that took place in the 1980s. Today, the local office market has an overall availability rate of 14%, well above the availability levels for retail, industrial and multifamily.

The decision to demolish a building generally follows if it is not financially viable for conversion to residential or another use. Some owners are opting to demolish existing structures and rebuild from the ground up. Many of the cleared sites are being repurposed to more resilient, in-demand uses, including apartments, retail, education and healthcare.

The most significant office demolition of 2025 was BET Investments' demolition of the former Prudential campus at 2101 Welsh Road in Upper Dublin. The 861,000-square-foot teardown will make way for Promenade East, a 90-acre mixed-use development that will include 600 apartments, townhomes, senior housing, retail space, a hotel and medical office space.

Smaller-scale demolitions include a 41,312-square-foot office at 700 Turner Way in Aston—the future site of a ChristianaCare micro-hospital—and an 86,622-square-foot building at 1200 W. Swedesford Road in Berwyn, which will be replaced by Bear Hill Elementary School.

With many office building conversions remaining prohibitively expensive, demolitions of obsolete office space are expected to gain further momentum over the next decade. While they won't fully resolve the office sector's long-standing oversupply issue, they represent a meaningful step toward a rebalancing.

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CBS renews lease at Center City Philadelphia office building

 By Samuel Murch CoStar Research

CBS recently renewed its office lease at 1500 Spring Garden St., a Class A office building in Philadelphia's Center City.

The broadcast network signed a long-term renewal for 74,000 square feet, which includes 62,000 square feet on the sixth floor and an additional 12,000 square feet in the lower level, which the company uses to support its vehicle fleet.

The broadcaster operates its Philadelphia television stations, including KYW-TV (CBS 3) and WPSG-TV (Philly 57), from the Center City location. The facility serves as its main broadcasting hub, with high-definition studios, control rooms and rooftop satellite dishes for producing and transmitting local television broadcasts and programming for the Delaware Valley. CBS originally moved into the building in 2007, and the renewal extends its term through 2042.

The large office building totals approximately 1.22 million square feet, and is jointly owned by New York-based commercial real estate investment firm Nightingale Properties and asset manager Wafra Inc.

CBS is the third-largest tenant in the building after privately held defense contractor Day & Zimmermann and casino tech firm Evolution Gaming.

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PCCP acquires 1.2 million-square-foot industrial facility near Harrisburg

By Rachel Whaley with CoStar AI

PCCP, a real estate finance and investment management firm focused on commercial real estate debt and equity investments with approximately $29.2 billion in assets under management on behalf of institutional investors, acquired the Ritner Logistics Center, a 1.2 million-square-foot industrial facility fully occupied by Newell Brands in Newville, Pennsylvania, from EQT Real Estate.

Located within Pennsylvania's I-81 corridor, the building traded for $141.6 million, or about $116.52 per square foot.

Built in 2019, the distribution center at 3419 Ritner Hwy encompasses 1,215,240 square feet on a 93.17-acre site and is fully leased by Newell Brands, a Fortune 500 manufacturer and distributor of consumer and commercial products. The cross-dock configured warehouse is located less than two miles from Interstate 81, with connectivity to both I-78 and I-76.

"Central Pennsylvania is an established bulk industrial market given its proximity to dense Northeast population centers, deep and accessible labor pool, and highway connectivity," said Lia Barsanti, a senior vice president with PCCP, in a statement announcing the acquisition. "PCCP believes acquiring a 100% leased warehouse at a meaningful discount to replacement cost in a core industrial node created a strong investment opportunity for our firm."

According to PCCP, the location allows for direct access to approximately 50% of the U.S. population and 60% of the Canadian population within a one-day truck drive. It's also within a three-hour drive from major distribution nodes, including the Port of New York/New Jersey, the Port of Philadelphia, Newark Liberty International Airport, and Philadelphia International Airport.

CoStar confirmed that the property was sold in October 2020, shortly after it was completed, for $85 million, which equated to about $70 per square foot at that time.

The acquisition adds to PCCP's industrial portfolio, which now includes 70 properties totaling more than 12 million square feet, or nearly a quarter of the company's total property holdings.

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Emerging New Real Estate Cycle (Video)

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Johnson & Johnson to build $1B cell therapy manufacturing plant in Montgomery County

 By John George – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal

Johnson & Johnson unveiled plans Wednesday to build a more than $1 billion cell therapy manufacturing plant in Montgomery County.

The plant will be built on a 154-acre property at 1201 Sumneytown Pike in Spring House, Lower Gwynedd Township. The site is about a mile from Johnson & Johnson's 171-acre research and development campus in Spring House. That campus, at McKean and Welsh roads, houses about 2,500 employees.

The Sumneytown Pike site for the new manufacturing plant has an existing 157,000-square-foot building but is otherwise undeveloped. It was sold by Gwynedd Mercy University for $31.5 million in 2022 to Beacon Capital Partners, a Boston real estate investment firm that owns the nearby Spring House Innovation Park. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) said it would own and develop the property, and the existing building at the site will be torn down.

The project is part of Johnson & Johnson's previously announced plan to invest $55 billion by early 2029 to manufacture the "vast majority" of its advanced medicines, including cell therapies that use living and modified cells to treat disease, in the United States.

“By uniting scientific excellence with state-of-the-art manufacturing and strategic investment, and by working collaboratively with our communities, we are delivering for patients and creating significant opportunities for workers and families," Joaquin Duato, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement.

The state is providing a $41.5 million economic package to support the Johnson & Johnson project. That package includes up to $12 million in tax credits through Pennsylvania's Qualified Manufacturing Innovation and Reinvestment Deduction program, up to $2 million in tax credits through the state's Manufacturing Tax Credit program, a $15 million grant through the Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites program and a $10 million Pennsylvania First grant.

The state has also committed to providing a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program award of up to $2.5 million to a local community college or technical school to help create a workforce development training program that would serve as a talent pipeline for the company in Montgomery County.

In a statement, Rick Siger, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, called Johnson & Johnson's decision to reinvest in Montgomery County "another huge win" for the state that further expands its life sciences ecosystem.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement that the project is further proof Pennsylvania is emerging as a "powerhouse" for innovation and manufacturing in the life sciences.

Johnson & Johnson is not disclosing the square footage of the Spring House plant, which it said will expand its manufacturing capacity as it advances its portfolio and pipeline of cell therapy medicines for cancer, immune-mediated and neurological diseases. The company has one cell therapy, Carvykti, approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The medicine is used to treat relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

Johnson & Johnson previously operated its Spring House campus as a Janssen Research & Development site. The company started phasing out the Janssen Pharmaceuticals name in 2023 as part of a corporate rebranding. Johnson & Johnson still maintains Janssen Biotech in neighboring Horsham, and the division will operate the new Spring House plant.

Full story: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2026/02/18/johnson-johnson-cell-therapy-spring-house.html

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