Blue Bell Inn has been sold

The Blue Bell Inn, which grew out of a mid-18th-century house at a Montgomery County crossroads, has been sold to a developer who intends to refurbish it rather than submit it to a wrecking ball.

John Lamprecht, the restaurant’s chef and owner since 1963, confirmed that developer Bruce Goodman, a longtime customer, will assume control on Sept. 4. His partners in the transaction are Kevin Clib and Scott Dougherty, who own Bridget’s, a steakhouse, and KC’s Alley, a pub, in nearby Ambler. Before joining Clib, Dougherty worked for Lamprecht for 11 years as a maitre d’ and manager.

Goodman said the decision to buy the inn was driven as much by sentimentality as by business. Goodman and his Jenkintown-based company, Goodman Properties, owns and manages 125 commercial properties in the region. In addition to renovations that will include a larger outdoor seating area, Goodman said he planned to develop a separate building on the three-acre plot, at Skippack and Penllyn-Blue Bell Pikes.
Lamprecht, whose father, Johann Lamprecht, and uncle Karl Friedel bought the inn in 1945, said he would retire. “At 76, I need to quit doing those 15-hour days,” he said. The Blue Bell was among the first fine-dining establishments in central Montgomery County to offer outdoor dining. Even before the recession, Lamprecht carved out a lower-priced bistro to appeal to budget-conscious patrons.
Clib described the new menu, to start Sept. 4, as focused on fresh seafood, and added that he would retain some favorites such as Dover sole and onion rings.
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Federal Realty CEO on New Properties, Dividends & CFO Change

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Bright spots in Center City space

by Natalie KostelniThough the overall Center City office market has lost some of the momentum it had when it closed out 2011, trophy and Class B office space have emerged at midyear as two sweet spots that may help define the future direction of the market.

Three significant Class B buildings have been targeted for apartment conversions, pulling more than 715,000 square feet of office space off of the market. Those buildings are: 1616 Walnut St., a 25-story, 279,770-square-foot property; 260 S. Broad St., which stands 21-stories and totals 330,000 square feet; and the Arch, formerly known as the Robert Morris Building, which totals 106,000 square feet.

The removal of that much space in that office category has helped push down the vacancy rate for Class B space to 10.5 percent at the end of the second quarter from 13.1 percent at the end of last year.

As the new owners of those buildings roll out their conversion plans, tenants have been forced to look elsewhere for new digs. That has meant, in most cases, seeking out other Class B and Class C space.
“There’s not a lot of places for all of those tenants in the B and C market. Tenants are finding space and it’s out there but it’s not plentiful. Unless you’re flexible, there’s not a lot of options.”
The dynamics playing out in the Class B market — shrinking inventory, limited space and demand — has meant pressure on rents.

“We have seen Class B rents tick up in certain submarkets. Brokers also expects as rents go up, concessions will continue to go down.
At the end of the year, Class B rents stood at $24.59 a square foot and are now at $25.51 a square foot.Tenants that are expanding also put some pressure on the Class B market. One company, whose firm owns five Class B office buildings in Center City, has seen a series of tenants add space as they grow.
“They aren’t noticeable, but we felt that taking them in the aggregate, it was meaningful."
At the opposite end, the trophy market has been affected by a string of large lease transactions during the first half of the year.

For example: Marsh & McLennan Cos. took 102,608 square feet at Three Logan Square; Cozen O’Connor took 200,000 square feet at One Liberty Place; Ballard Spahr stayed put in 190,000 square feet at Mellon Bank Center; and Reed Smith grabbed 115,000 square feet at Three Logan.

While those tenants and others have wrapped up their deals, other companies are looking for large blocks of trophy space, which is in short supply. Just 9 percent of the trophy market, which totals 6.35 million square feet, is available. Some of the tenants scouring the market include: Drinker Biddle & Reath seeking 175,000 square feet, FMC Corp. is scouting out 150,000 square feet, Pepper Hamilton is on the hunt for 150,000 square feet; Glenmede Trust wants 100,000 square feet; and Beneficial Bank is looking for 100,000 square feet.
Full story: http://tinyurl.com/bq7jjjc
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Kimco CEO: Fixed Amount of Quality Retail Space Now

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Tokyo Ultimate Moving into Mays Landing

Tokyo Ultimate Seafood and Sushi Buffet, a local Asian-themed restaurant, plans to open their doors at Wrangleboro Consumer Square, a 841,700-square-foot power center at 2300 Wrangleboro Rd. in Mays Landing, NJ.

The restaurant leased 10,000 square feet within the center, which was built in 1997 on approximately 76 acres in the Southern New Jersey submarket of Atlantic County.
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The Crossings at Mill Creek Sells for $22.7M

Local multifamily property owner and manager Morgan Properties, along with institutional investor AIG, sold the 338-unit multifamily complex at 2000 Swarr Run Rd. in Lancaster, PA for $22.65 million, or about $67,000 per unit. The new owner, The Westover Companies, is a locally based regional real estate investment company that develops, owns, and manages multifamily, office, and retail properties across the Mid-Atlantic states.

Built in 1971, The Crossings at Mill Creek is a 327,604-square-foot multifamily community located in the Lancaster County submarket of Philadelphia. The property consists of 84 one-bedroom units, 170 two-bedroom units, and 84 three-bedroom units. Each unit has a full kitchen that includes a dishwasher and separate dining area. The majority of the units have washers and dryers. The community also has laundry facilities, swimming pools, and playgrounds.
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FedEx to build distribution center in Delaware County

"The ground-shipping division of FedEx Corp. will build a $64 million automated small-package distribution center in Lester, Delaware County.

The center, when it opens in September 2013, will be one of the 50 largest that FedEx Ground operates in the United States and Canada, company spokesman David Westrick said.

Ground will be broken for construction at 10 a.m. Thursday for the 211,000-square-foot plant on Tinicum Island Road in Tinicum Township, near Philadelphia International Airport.

FedEx Ground, based in Pittsburgh, is the small-package ground-shipping division of FedEx Corp.

The new plant will employ 70 and be one of 500 local pickup and mail-delivery stations operated by FedEx Ground.

FedEx already has a ground-package distribution center on Townsend Road in Philadelphia, where packages arrive in trucks, are sorted, and then are shipped on trucks to various locations.

The new facility will operate the same way.

"In the mornings, vehicles are dispatched to make deliveries in the area with packages that came in overnight," Westrick said. "In the evening, packages that were picked up from local businesses during the day are sorted and sent out to go all over the country.

"All our packages are on the ground, similar to parcel post."

FedEx Corp., with headquarters in Memphis, has three divisions: FedEx Express for air packages, FedEx Ground, and FedEx Freight.

The volume handled by FedEx Ground has doubled in the last 10 years to more than 5.6 million packages daily. The ground carrier had $9.5 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2012 and 59,000 employees.

"When we open in September 2013, we are expecting to have 70 people there," said Westrick. Forty will be new hires, and the rest will transfer from 14300 Townsend Road, Westrick said.

"Some of the activity from the existing facility will move into the new facility, thus we need some of those employees," he said.

The new FedEx Ground facility is part of a nationwide network expansion, in which 11 major hubs have been added and 500 other distribution centers have expanded or relocated since 2005, the company said."
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