Following required approvals, the partnership of Malvern-based E. Kahn Development, Wayne-based Love Communities, and Harrisburg’s Triple Crown Corp. is proceeding with plans to convert a Wayne office complex into 162 apartments, writes Paul Schwedelson for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The partnership purchased the then half-empty property for $10.2 million, taking a calculated risk on whether a future conversion would be approved given the unusually low sale price.
Fourteen months later, that gamble has paid off, and the trio is launching a $22 million office-to-residential project.
The development will be completed in phases, with pre-leasing already underway and the first apartments expected to open in April. Units will be primarily studios and one-bedrooms.
The site sold for half of what Conshohocken’s Maguire Hayden Real Estate paid in 2017 to acquire the office complex. At $10.2 million, the sale equates to $70 per square foot, roughly the value of the ten-acre land alone without the buildings.
“The key to long-term success in this business is if your best laid plans don’t work, what’s the end result?” said Eli Kahn, owner of E. Kahn Development. “That’s why buying it [at the right price] was so important.”
Read more about the plan to renovate a Wayne office complex into 162 apartments in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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