Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US, or METUS, has leased about 489,000 square feet at 2951 Orthodox St. in Philadelphia’s Bridesburg neighborhood. The company is a joint venture between Trane Technologies and Mitsubishi Electric, which sells and distributes heating and cooling systems across the U.S. and Latin America. It’s the first tenant to sign at the building, which developer Kurv (formerly Bridge Industrial) finished in 2024.

The lease takes about two-thirds of the 740,701-square-foot building and leaves roughly 250,000 square feet open. It’s the larger of two buildings at Bridge Point Philadelphia, a 63-acre campus of about 890,000 square feet. The smaller building, at 148,611 square feet, went to last-mile delivery firm Veho in 2024. Now, with METUS signed, the developer has leased more than 70% of the campus.

JLL’s Larry Maister and Kyle Lockard handled the leasing.

The land has a long industrial past. Initially, it was a gas works facility in the 1920s and then a steel plant from 1929 until 1982, after which it sat abandoned for decades. Most recently, the developer bought the site in 2022 and rezoned it with the city before putting up the two warehouses. That kind of rebuild has become common around Philadelphia, where old, unused, industrial land near the city is being turned into modern distribution space.

The building sits just north of the Betsy Ross Bridge and right off Interstate 95, enabling easy distribution of goods to the rest of the Northeast. It had stood empty since it opened, so filling most of it with one tenant is a major step for the owner. The deal also lands amid an increase in large warehouse leasing around Philadelphia. For example, beverage maker DrinkPAK took 1.4 million square feet at the Bellwether District earlier this year.

Philadelphia is still one of the more affordable large industrial markets for tenants: Space rents for about $8.77 per square foot, on average, which is a bit under the national average of $9.12, although newer leases have been going for more (around $10.03), according to Yardi Research data. Meanwhile, vacancy has climbed to 9%, up about 230 basis points over last year for the steepest rise in the Northeast after a significant amount of new space came to market.