CEOs from Liberty Property, Brandywine Realty and PREIT give forecast for the future of commercial real estate in Greater Philadelphia.

Bill Hankowsky, Jerry Sweeney, and Joe Coradino shared their thoughts as part of a panel discussion today at The Philadelphia Business Journal’s first ever Economic Conference.  Highlights from the event:

Office:  The new trend toward more modern and open work spaces will continue to drive demand for new office construction.  With city residency and millenial retention rising, the downtown area could become attractive to larger companies seeking to establish a downtown headquarters.   New construction will present the challenge and opportunity of re-purposing older office stock from the 1980s.

Retail:  The retail sector has moved from opening stores and collecting rents to creating holistic experiences for consumers.  The internet has not signaled the death of traditional retail, with web sales still less than 10% of bricks and mortar sales.  The trend toward online purchasing also presents positive opportunities for cross-marketing of traditional retailers.  As online sales increase, new distribution channels will have real estate needs to fill (i.e., warehousing and logistics).

Challenges:  Political uncertainty in Harrisburg and concern over the direction of taxes and public policy are the biggests challenges to commercial real estate in Greater Philadelphia.

To learn more about the future of commercial real estate in Greater Philadelphia please visit the Website of Wolf Commercial Real Estate.

Wolf Commercial Real Estate is a Philadelphia commercial real estate broker that provides a full range of Philadelphia commercial real estate listings and services, marketing commercial offices, medical properties, industrial properties, land properties, retail buildings and other Philadelphia commercial properties for buyers, tenants, investors and sellers.  Please visit our websites for a full listing of Philadelphia commercial properties for lease or sale through our Philadelphia commercial real estate brokerage firm.