March 25-April 7, 2005

McFadden and Shute represent sellers

NAI Geis sells two buildings in Franklin Corners for $2.38 million

West Chester, PA – The Village at Franklin Corners has sold two of its four buildings for $2.38 million. The historic property was originally built around the turn of the 20th century and began a complete renovation around May of 2004, by Franklin Corners Associates, LLC.

The developer, Tom Deignan, has a long history redeveloping overlooked properties that include retail, office and multi-family and was especially excited about the Franklin Corners project. “Franklin Corners offered a great opportunity to take buildings which were obsolete and turn them into state of the art buildings while maintaining a historical integrity, said Deignan. “In a market which has an abundance of traditional vacant office space, we have sold two buildings (with a third under contract) at premium sale prices by providing architecturally interesting buildings which satisfy today’s entrepreneur. Furthermore, the redevelopment of Franklin Corners has dramatically improved not only the aesthetics of the neighborhood, but helped push recent home sales to record levels.”

Prior to completing construction on the first building, two of the buildings were under agreement and have recently welcomed their new tenants following construction completion. The 9,855 s/f Mill Building at 301 Lacey St. sold for $1.7 million to Pinnacle Reach, LLC and will be occupied by BYL, Inc., a financial services firm that is relocating and expanding from their former space on Airport Road.

The 3,500 s/f Executive Building at 237 Lacey Street sold for $680,000 to Hidden Farm Associates, LLC, and will be home to Brandon Associates, Inc. a sales engineering and marketing firm that will be doubling their former office space in The Executive Building.

Geis Realty Group’s senior VP, Dave McFadden, attributes the quick sales not only to superb development work, but also to the dramatic rise in interest in office building sales in a sluggish leasing environment. “We’re noticing a trend overall of a high level of office, building sales and an ongoing interest in small- to mid-sized office users within the last year, especially in West Chester”, McFadden said.

The two remaining buildings are nearly complete: the 4,200 s/f Milk House Building at 501 S. Franklin St., and the 12,000 s/f Railroad Building at 515 S. Franklin St., which will be sold as three office condominium units ranging in size from 3,500 s/f to 5,000 s/f, based upon the high demand for smaller office suites.

NAI Geis Realty Group, Inc.’s David McFadden and Adam Shute represented the seller Franklin Corners Associates, LLC and Bob Fox of Fox Commercial Real Estate represented the buyer for The Mill Building sale. NAI Geis Realty Group, Inc. was the sole broker for the sale of The Executive Building.