PREIT Completes Sale of Land Parcel at Exton Square

by Steve Lubetkin, Globest.com
PREIT completed the sale of a four-acre parcel at Exton Square to Hanover Company, generating gross proceeds of $10.3 million.

The sale will enable development of more than 300 luxury apartments on the site of Exton Square Mall, where a new Whole Foods opened earlier this year as a preliminary step in reimagining the property.
“We are pleased to have completed this transaction as part of our densification program, which serves to improve the value of our assets and our liquidity position to strengthen our balance sheet,” says Joseph F. Coradino, CEO of PREIT. “We will continue to redeploy the capital we raise into our successful anchor replacement program to drive traffic, sales and NOI and create value for shareholders.”

The transaction marks a critical step in PREIT’s high-priority densification program, designed to transform its properties into remarkable and innovative environments, with retail at the core. As previously reported by GlobeSt.com, PREIT has been working feverishly to reposition its mall properties, including its flagship assets in the South Jersey and Philadelphia markets, to relieve some of the occupancy pressures malls face as weaker retailers retrench. This has included an increase in the number of experiential tenants, restaurants, and even coworking space planned for the Cherry Hill Mall.

In May, the company announced that it would be looking for opportunities to develop residential components throughout its portfolio of well-located, mostly mall-style retail properties in high barrier-to-entry markets. PREIT said at the time it would seek to develop 5,000-7,000 residential units in the Philadelphia and Washington, DC, markets and 1,500-3,000 hotel units across a dozen properties. PREIT says it is in active discussions on three additional multifamily opportunities and three hotel opportunities.
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