DRA Advisors JV Secures $55M for Philly Shopping Center

The partnership between DRA Advisors and KPR Centers has received $55 million in financing for Quartermaster Plaza, a 456,208-square-foot open-air shopping center in Philadelphia. Webster Bank provided the five-year loan, public records show, in a deal arranged by JLL Capital Markets.

DRA and KPR purchased the property in 2022 from Cedar Realty Trust for $100.1 million, in an $879 million portfolio deal involving 35 grocery-anchored shopping centers and totaling more than 4.9 million square feet.

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Quartermaster Plaza came online on some 44 acres in 2004. Anchored by BJ’s, The Home Depot and Sprouts Farmers Market, the retail center has a diverse mix of regional and national tenants such as Bank of America, Wendy’s, Walgreens, PetSmart and Planet Fitness, among others.

The shopping center was 99 percent leased at the time of the transaction, with 15.7 years of weighted average tenure and a weighted average lease term of eight years. The property has seen more than 53,000 square feet of new leases signed and 191,000 square feet of lease renewals closed in the last 36 months, according to JLL.

Senior Managing Directors Michael Gigliotti and James Galbally, together with Senior Director Michael Pagniucci and Associate Blaine Fleming, led the Debt Advisory Team which represented the owners.

Philadelphia’s tourism adding to retail demand

Located at 2200 W. Oregon Ave. in the South Philadelphia West neighborhood, Quartermaster Plaza serves around 328,145 individuals within a 3-mile radius, with the average household income of approximately $88,810, according to JLL. Situated right off Interstate 76, the property received more than 3.7 million visitors over the last 12 months and ranked as the second most visited retail center within a 5-mile radius.

Greater Philadelphia’s tourism trade exceeded pre-pandemic levels last year, adding to retail demand, according to a fourth quarter 2023 report by CBRE. The metro’s amount of available space continued to disappear as leases were signed and deals were closed; the vacancy rate clocked in at 7.2 percent, a 70-basis-point drop from the value recorded in the first quarter of last year.