Brandywine Realty Trust has secured two partners — one an undisclosed global institutional investor — on the development of a $287 million project at Schuylkill Yards and is making progress on its lease negotiations with Dechert at Cira Centre.
The Philadelphia real estate investment trust said Dechert, one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms, is in discussions to occupy 110,000 square feet in the upper floors of Cira Centre. The firm currently occupies around 240,000 square feet space in the office tower and is scheduled to give some of its space back this year, Brandywine executives said during a fourth quarter conference call on Wednesday.
Brandywine also said it has a life sciences incubator that will occupy several floors in Cira Centre it is converting into lab space. Cira Centre recently lost BakerHostetler as a tenant. The law firm, which had 80,000 square feet, is relocating to 1735 Market St. in Center City.
Brandywine continues to shift its focus more on life sciences space and the new building at Schuylkill Yards is part of that effort. The project, referred to as the West Tower at Schuylkill Yards, will rise at 3025 John F. Kennedy Blvd. The site is adjacent to Amtrak’s 30th Street Station.
The 570,000-square-foot project involves 326 apartments and 200,000 square feet of life sciences space as well as 29,000 square feet of amenity space and 9,000 square feet of retail space. In the company’s conference call on Wednesday, executives said that it has 300,000 square feet of prospective tenants for the office-lab space in the new building and is tracking other life sciences tenants that could lead to potentially kicking off another building at Schuylkill Yards this year. The company has designed a $300 million, 500,000-square-foot life sciences building at 3151 Market St.
Gotham Organization, a New York real estate company that has built apartments and commercial space, will partner with Brandywine (NYSE: BDN) on the multifamily portion of the new Schuylkill Yards’ project. Brandywine expects to break ground next month and complete the building by October 2023.
Among other highlights from its four quarter, Brandywine paid in late November $9.7 million for a 119,763-square-foot office building at 1505-11 Race St. in Philadelphia. The property is part of a portfolio of buildings up for sale that used to be occupied by Hahnemann University Hospital. The building is fully occupied and the company said it intends to redevelop the building once the tenant vacates.
In Radnor, it bought for $20.3 million a 169,834-square-foot office building at 250 King of Prussia Road. The building was purchased from Penn Medicine, which relocated those operations to a newly constructed building across the street. Brandywine expects to begin redevelopment of the King of Prussia Road building this year.
*Article courtesy of Philadelphia Business Journal
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