Design Hub Coming to Center City

By Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

National Real Estate Development and SSH Real Estate have announced that Philadelphia’s former family court building, currently under redevelopment, has landed its first corporate tenant.

East Market Mixed-Use Development in Philadelphia

The Design Center, a group of designers and showrooms formerly known as Marketplace Design Center, will lease 48,000 square feet at 34 S. 11th St. in Center City. The group — which includes the Baer Collection, Beatrice & Martin, Croce, AK & CO, Harrington Group, Kravet, Pindler & Pindler, Robert Allen and Scalamandre — is set to move to the new location by the fall of 2016.

As a result of the lease agreement, the project’s developers have secured a $38.5 million construction loan from Wells Fargo to move forward with the renovation.

The upcoming Class A, modern office warehouse project is part of the $500 million East Market development. The 4.3-acre mixed-use project will span an entire city block, blending new-to-market retail and dining experiences with contemporary apartments to create a thriving urban destination for locals and tourists. Besides the 34 S. 11th St. renovation, the initial phase of the development encompasses additional buildings along Market Street that are scheduled to open in the summer and fall of 2016.

East Market is being developed by National Real Estate Development and is owned by National Real Estate Advisors, JOSS Realty Partners LLC, Young Capital LLC and SSH Real Estate.

“East Market will be a place for the creatives, innovators and young professionals who value design and originality and want to be in the center of it all. The Design Center showrooms perfectly complement our vision for this historic and transforming section of Philadelphia, and we are delighted to welcome them to East Market,” Daniel Killinger, managing director of National Real Estate Development, said in prepared remarks.

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, some of the Design Center retailers have worked out of 2400 Market St., where they are currently located, for 40 years and had been seeking new space for quite a while. They were represented in their search by Jim Egan, an office broker with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, and his colleagues Jeff Tertel and Matt Guerrieri.

Photo credit: National Real Estate Development