Jones Lang LaSalle


EXCLUSIVE: BPG Slates $64M in Suburban Office Development
By Marita Thomas
Last updated: March 6, 2006 06:44am

PHILADELPHIA-BPG Properties Ltd. is poised to construct two new office buildings aggregating 320,000 sf at a total cost of $64 million. The 200,000-sf spec, class A, 1000 Continental building at that address in King of Prussia will break ground on May 1.

Approvals are complete for a 120,000-sf facility at 2660 Audubon Rd. in Valley Forge Corporate Center as soon as the company locks in a corporate tenant or build-to-suit client, BPG SVP Stephen Spaeder, tells GlobeSt.com. "While 1000 Continental will reach completion within 14 months of ground-breaking, we could deliver the Valley Forge building earlier, within a year," he says.

The marketing of the Valley Forge property is assigned to Scott Gabrielsen, SVP of locally based Binswanger, who tells GlobeSt.com the rental rates are in the mid- to high-$20s per sf.
2660 Audubon Rd.

It will be a four-story building. Spaeder says the cost is approximately $22 million, or about $180 per sf. There is just one other property available in the area with this much contiguous space, so we see this as an alternative for a corporate user." BPG won’t break ground until Gabrielsen finds one, though, because of progressing with 1000 Continental.

The all-in cost for this six-story, multi-tenant spec building is $42 million, "about $210 per sf," Spaeder says. John Susanin and Doug Newbert of GVA Smith Mack are handling the leasing. Spaeder says, "rates will be in the range of $29.50 to $30 per sf." BPG is the operating affiliate of locally based Berwind Property Group. It has a diverse portfolio of more than 20 million sf of commercial real estate space throughout the US.