By Katie Burke CoStar News
An iconic downtown Philadelphia office tower is bracing for the loss of another anchor tenant with a law firm's plans to ditch its 111,000-square-foot space and relocate elsewhere in the city.
Saul Ewing, which has been based in the Centre Square complex at 1500 Market St. for half a century and is the property's fourth-largest tenant, confirmed it would be leaving its multifloor space at the property within the next couple of years as it prepares to move to another office tower just a couple blocks away. The decision will help align the company's space to meet the needs of its hybrid work policy, a spokesperson with the law firm said in a statement, adding it plans to make the shift sometime in 2026.
The firm's relocation means it will considerably shrink its corporate footprint in the city. Saul Ewing leased about 53,330 square feet for its future office at 1735 Market St., according to an Avison Young market report, roughly half of its existing headquarters space in Centre Square. The company's post-pandemic work policy allows most of its lawyers to commute to an office every Wednesday and four other days each month, a plan it has maintained since 2022 that "encourages" employees to venture into physical space but doesn't formally mandate it.
The move coincides with an ongoing trend across the national office market in which companies are adjusting, and often dramatically downsizing, their real estate portfolios to adapt to the declining use of their physical spaces. While there are companies still signing deals, they are now typically for smaller spaces in nicer properties.
Tenants collectively signed on for about 395 million square feet last year, according to CoStar data, about 13% below the annual average reported in the years leading up to the pandemic's 2020 outbreak. What's more, those deals are about 16% smaller on average than those signed between 2015 and 2019, exacerbating the vacancy challenges and onslaught of available space littered across the country's largest office markets.
The looming Saul Ewing vacancy is the latest blow for the two-building Centre Square complex, which spans more than 2.2 million square feet and — without factoring in Saul Ewing's pending relocation — is now less than 70% occupied, according to CoStar data. It fell into receivership a year ago when landlords Nightingale Properties and Wafra Capital Partners failed to pay off a $368 million loan.
The owners acquired the Market Street properties as part of a $328 million portfolio deal that closed in mid-2017. Wafra at the time was named InterVest Capital Partners.
The departure extends a string of other occupancy losses the Centre Square complex has faced in recent months. Dilworth Paxson, another law firm, is expected to relocate from its 83,100-square-foot office to about 50,000 square feet at One Liberty Place. Conrad O’Brien last November opted not to renew its lease for 40,000 square feet of Centre Square space, instead consolidating its Philadelphia office footprint as a result of a merger with fellow law firm Clark Hill.
Those departures compounded large vacancies by international insurance company Willis Towers Watson, investment management company Berwind and Comcast, which combined ditched more than 380,000 square feet from mid-2020 to August 2021.
Neither Nightingale Properties nor Wafra Capital Partners responded to CoStar News' emailed requests for comment.
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