Middle Market CRE Digest Northeast

by Steve Lubetkin, Globest.com

Urban Land Institute Philadelphia, Mitchell Roschelle of PriceWaterhouseCoopers unveiled his annual industry outlook, with 82 percent of his survey respondents expecting a good or excellent year for profits in 2016, and just over 81 percent feeling that way for next year. Small developers are now facing a beauty pageant as global investors seek access to previously less-well noticed markets, Roschelle says.

 Industrial properties continue to froth and bubble as retailers, e-commerce companies, and others press for close-in access to the New York metroplex and its tens of millions of impatient consumers who want what they want and want it now. The feverish activity in the eight New Jersey Turnpike core submarkets has accounted for 82.8 percent of the state’s leasing velocity thus far in 2016. “We’ve witnessed positive industrial absorption in 22 of the past 24 months, which speaks directly to the sustained demand from tenants and their need to service the vast surrounding consumer base. As consumers increasingly gravitate towards making purchases online, the demand for industrial space in specific New Jersey locations will continue to grow.”

Building Blocks
Wawa has opened its newest Philadelphia store at 1900 Market Street. At approximately 7,000 square-feet, it’s Wawa’s largest street store to date, and its fifth Center City location. It is situated on the ground floor of Brandywine Realty Trust’s recently renovated 456,922 square-foot office building in the booming Market Street West corridor.

ACME Markets and real estate development firm, The Goldenberg Group, have signed a lease to construct a new supermarket in Philadelphia.  The new full-line grocery market will be located in the Snyder Plaza Shopping Center, 29 Snyder Avenue, and will serve the Pennsport and Whitman neighborhoods as well as the greater Center City area.  The new ACME, which opens in Summer 2017, will include Starbucks Coffee and a beer and wine shop.

Money Moves
Holliday Fenoglio Fowler arranged $6.061 million in financing for a 178,600-square-foot, vacant industrial warehouse at 4500 Westport Drive in Mechanicsburg, PA. HFF worked on behalf of the borrower, a joint venture between Foxfield Ventures and Novaya Real Estate Ventures, to secure the floating-rate loan. The financing facilitated both the acquisition and future funding needs to implement a light capital improvement program.
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