By Paul Schwedelson – Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
The three-story Radnor Court office building has sold, signaling the continued strength of the Main Line submarket.
New York-based investment bank Goldman Sachs sold the 127,000-square-foot building, located at 259 N. Radnor Chester Road in Wayne. The property was bought by Florida-based mortgage lender Freedom Mortgage for just over $36 million, according to industry sources, equating to about $285 per square foot.
Goldman Sachs bought Radnor Court in 2014 from Equus Capital Partners for $43.7 million.
Freedom Mortgage, one of the nation’s largest non-bank mortgage lenders, relocated its headquarters from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, to Boca Raton, Florida, in 2021. The firm services all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Freedom Mortgage declined comment.
Radnor Court is 82% leased and its tenants have a weighted average lease term of 8.6 years. The building serves as the corporate headquarters for Airgas, which recently extended its lease for 10 years, helping to boost its value. Airgas, a supplier of industrial, medical and specialty gases, leases 86,000 square feet. Professional services firm Aon is also among the tenants, leasing 9,000 square feet.
The office building sits northwest of the intersection of I-476 and Lancaster Avenue, between Radnor High School and SEPTA’s Regional Rail stop.
More than 25 prospective buyers toured the property. As of the third quarter of 2024, the Main Line submarket had a 14.5% office vacancy rate, making it one of the strongest performing submarkets in Philadelphia’s suburbs. The suburbs as a whole had an average vacancy of 26%. For trophy properties, the vacancy rate was 4% a result of the flight to quality that’s taken place among tenants in recent years.
“This bodes well for high-quality, well-located office buildings even in what we all recognize is a challenged office environment."
While a number of office sales in 2024 involved properties in distress or with high vacancy rates, Radnor Court didn’t have any debt and wasn’t a distressed sale, according to Rodio and Kershner. The sale of a healthy office property with strong occupancy indicates the sales market is loosening up.
In September, Brandywine Realty Trust sold the five-office, 521,288-square-foot Plymouth Meeting Executive Campus for $65.5 million, or $126 per square foot. While it was 77% occupied at the time of the sale, a major difference from Radnor Court is that the Plymouth Meeting submarket was 43% vacant as of the third quarter of 2024.
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