Big Deal! 29 Office Buildings in Greater Philadelphia Change Hands

By Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

Brookwood Financial Partners expanded its footprint in the Philadelphia suburbs with the acquisition of 29 buildings.

500 Office Center Drive in Fort Washington, Pa.

The portfolio comprises 23 Class A and Class B office facilities and six office/flex properties that range in size from 17,750 square feet to 132,385 square feet. These assets, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal, traded for a reported $183 million. They contain a total of 1,611,961 square feet and include the following four sub-portfolios:

• Bucks County sub-portfolio, which consists of three Class B office buildings located in Bensalem, PA; the properties total 167,280 square feet and have an occupancy of 80.6 percent;
• Fort Washington sub-portfolio, which consists of six Class A and B office buildings located in Fort Washington, PA; the properties total 457,913 square feet and have an occupancy of 88.3 percent;
• Horsham Sub-Portfolio, which consists of nine Class A and B office buildings located in Horsham, PA; these properties total 318,137 square feet and have an occupancy of 84.6 percent;
• Lehigh Valley sub-portfolio, which consists of eleven Class A and B buildings located in Allentown, PA; the properties total 668,631 square feet and have an occupancy of 85.2 percent.

The entire portfolio was owned by Brandywine Realty Trust until 2007, when the company sold an 80 percent stake to DRA Advisors. Brandywine retained the remaining 20 percent interest, as well as the management responsibilities of the properties.

Since DRA purchased these assets at the peak of the market, the company suffered a large loss. Earlier this year, DRA entered into a forbearance agreement with a lender involved in this acquisition that held a non-recourse mortgage on the properties with a balance of $174.2 million. The agreement allowed the lender to sell the assets to Brookwood.

The entire acquisition was not easy to complete, according to Tom Brown, president of Brookwood. “There were a lot of moving parts,” he told the newspaper.

With this transaction, Brookwood now owns and manages 110 buildings throughout the United States consisting of approximately 8.5 million square feet in 10 states with a current value of more than $1.2 billion.

Photo credits: loopnet.com