By Katie Burke CoStar News
BNY is making more changes to its Philadelphia-area office presence with plans to consolidate several of its regional offices under a single suburban roof.
After finalizing a full-floor deal, the oldest bank in the country is set to shift its suburban real estate presence to the building at 965 Chesterbrook Blvd. in Wayne, Pennsylvania, as part of plans to make its corporate office portfolio operate more efficiently.
It isn't yet clear which BNY offices will be impacted by the consolidation plans. The more than 41,650-square-foot lease is slated to house a new hub that is expected to open sometime next year, a BNY representative confirmed to CoStar News, extending a string of downsizings and lease terminations the bank has made in the Philadelphia area over the past several years.
The New York-based financial institution last year vacated its roughly 47,000-square-foot space in the BNY Mellon Center high-rise in Philadelphia's Center City. It downshifted its presence several blocks away to the One Logan Square building, where it opted to lease just 15,000 square feet.
The more than 1.3 million-square-foot Market Street tower had been named after BNY since it was developed in the 1990s. The bank, which once occupied as much as 180,000 square feet there, has steadily reduced its physical presence in recent years as it implemented widespread tweaks and changes to its office portfolio across the country.
The bank also cut more than 57,000 square feet from its regional footprint with the closure of another Pennsylvania office in 2023.
While the moves have softened BNY's Philadelphia presence, the Wayne lease is a welcome boost for the suburban property. It lands just a few months after owner Rubenstein Partners cemented a $124 million refinancing package for the broader 1.1 million-square-foot Chesterbrook office park, a campus that includes about 15 buildings that collectively average a bit more than 60% occupied.
Philadelphia-based Rubenstein paid $148.5 million for the campus the year before the pandemic's 2020 outbreak. While the firm has faced financial challenges as a result of COVID-19's wrath in recent years, about $55 million worth of renovations and upgrades at the Chesterbrook campus have helped it land 19 new leases over the past two years, activity that has helped to fill upward of 300,000 square feet.
Just a few months before BNY's lease, for example, Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance Co. signed a full-floor deal for the same building. Rubenstein now only has about 20,000 square feet left to fill.
