Former Frankford Chocolate Factory, 1515 Market St. Up for Grabs for a Cumulative $100 Million

By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor

Frankford Chocolate Factory Site Philadelphia

One of the largest sites available for development in Philadelphia is looking for a buyer as lawyers are liquidating its late owner’s real estate assets.

As reported by Philadelphia Inquirer, CBRE was tapped to market the 2.3-acre site that used to accommodate the former Frankford Candy & Chocolate Factory in the southwest section of Center City. Previously owned by Truong Dinh Tran, a Vietnamese-American who created a veritable empire of low-rent hotels in and around New York City. The 100,000-square-foot factory site is located at 2101 Washington Avenue and was purchased by Truong for $5.75 million in 2007 with plans to spend $100 million to transform the property into a mixed-use community tailored to Philadelphia’s Vietnamese community. The news source also reports that a scaled-down version of Truong’s development proposal was approved by the city, but the project failed to become reality because of the economic downturn.

The Frankford Candy & Chocolate Factory is the only property in Philadelphia that Truong owned. It encompasses over 240,000 square feet of industrial and office space and could sell for up to $15 million, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. Since the site is zoned I-2, the factory could be redeveloped into residential use with commercial space.

Penn Center Philadelphia

Meanwhile, the 20-story office building sitting at 1515 Market Street was put on the market for around $85 million by a joint venture between Winthrop Realty Trust Inc. and Stockton Real Estate Advisors. Also known as Three Penn Center, the 502,000-square-foot structure was designed by Emery Roth & Sons and completed in 1958. It was the first in a corridor of office and retail buildings constructed in the 1950s over a blighted industrial site in what is now Philadelphia’s Central Business District.

The building is currently 87 percent leased and also features over 15,000 square feet of retail space. The list of tenants includes Temple University—which occupies almost 128,000 square feet of space through June 2022—as well as law firm Litchfield Cavo LLP and accounting firm Heffler, Radetich & Saitta LLP. According to the Journal, the real estate asset will be acquired by Accesso Partners, a full-service commercial real estate company based in Hallandale, Fla. JLL is representing the Winthrop/Stockton venture in the transaction.

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Images via Flickr, credits to authors inafreeland and  kjetil_r