Commercial Real Estate Archives

In 1987, a developer decided to build on a parcel that straddled the border between two towns in Massachusetts. One town had a public sewer system, and the other did not. In a commercial development, access to a sewer system can be critical, so the developer and the city with the sewer system — the city of Marlborough — negotiated an agreement that would give the developer the services he needed.

A case from Massachusetts caught our attention recently. The issue is payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, and the confusion that can result from long-term PILOT agreements. Our readers may be familiar with the term, but they may not realize that PILOTs in Pennsylvania differ from PILOTs in other states.

Refinancing of 15 brownstones in Philadelphia was completed at $15.5 million in refinancing. Funding for the refinancing was orchestrated by a private commercial real estate brokerage as a 3.5 percent interest rate was set for seven years.

As many Philadelphia residents are aware, Comcast is building a massive skyscraper in the city. The building, dubbed the Comcast Information and Technology Center will become the largest building in the United States that isn’t in New York or Chicago. The projected cost of this massive building is $1.2 billion and there will be plenty of offices and real estate created as a result of this building’s construction.

In January, we promised to continue to demystify real estate jargon. We came across a column recently that reminded us of the common and often confusing classification of office space. There are three basic levels — class A, B and C — and there is room in every market for each type of property. The differences can be subtle, but they are important.

The School Reform Commission of the Philadelphia Public Schools is reportedly making headway in its effort to sell school properties. The district closed 23 school sites last summer (we wrote about this in our May 27, 2013, post). The current proposal involves the sale of just six schools.

Shopping malls in the Philadelphia area are fighting back, it seems, even after a rough holiday season and a grim forecasts for retail (see our Jan. 26 post). It is understandable, after the winter we’ve had. Internet shopping is a little less appealing to those of us with cabin fever, but snow, rain, ice and wind have kept us inside. What better escape than an enclosed mall?

The face of retail in Philadelphia will undergo more changes in the next few months. Sears Holdings Corp. announced recently that it will close two Kmart stores, one at the Gallery and one on Orthodox Street, in late April. Liquidation is set to begin Feb. 9.

We are returning to our discussion of retail trends started in our Jan. 26 post. The sector looks pretty grim on the surface, with so many major chains shuttering stores in Philadelphia and all over the country. Traditional indoor malls will likely feel the worst of it as large anchor stores empty out. In addition to their sheer size (and the rent that comes with it), Anchors like J.C. Penney, Sears and Macy’s offer shoppers key access points to indoor malls. When they close, shoppers’ routines are interrupted, sometimes to the point of striking the entire mall of the shopper’s list of destinations.

We may be showing our age, but reports about retail stores, especially large department stores, closing bring the old Yellow Pages ads to mind: Let your fingers do the walking, the soothing voiceover told us. With the advent of online shopping, Americans have taken that advice to heart by avoiding bricks-and-mortar shopping, even at the holidays.