Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has expanded its presence in the Wanamaker Building and added another 54,000 square feet.
CHOP now occupies a total of 300,000 square feet in the building at 100 Penn Square East in Philadelphia and serves as its largest tenant. The hospital has been in Wanamaker since 2005. It started out with 192,000 square feet and added space over the years. In 2011, the hospital expanded and renewed its lease in the building. The new 54,000-square-foot lease will run coterminous with its other leases, said Scott MacGregor, vice president at Rubenstein Partners, which owns the building.
With the new deal, CHOP backfills a vacancy that had been created when Aramark Corp. relocated to 2400 Market St. in Philadelphia. The building’s office space is 95 percent occupied.
CHOP maintains administrative offices in Wanamaker and joins the University of Pennsylvania in using Center City office space to house a portion of those functions. They are both based in University City. Penn Medicine initially signed onto space in Centre Square in 2007. It has been growing its Center City presence ever since and now occupies 264,000 square feet.
Though already based in Center City, Thomas Jefferson University has decided to centralize and relocate it corporate and administrative offices off of its main campus and into 1101 Market St. It occupies 237,000 square feet in the building and also backfilled space vacated by Aramark.
In addition to CHOP expanding, a new tenant to Wanamaker is Kambi, a British-based gaming company. It leased a 7,000-square-foot spec suite. Rubenstein was represented by Neil Brazitis and Sid Smith of Newmark Knight Frank.
The Wanamaker building is one of the city’s most iconic. It once housed Wanamaker’s department store, which is now the Center City Macy’s.