Ben Franklin Technology Partners Puts Longtime Navy Yard Building Up For Sale, Eyes Move

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania has put its longtime home in the Philadelphia Navy Yard up for sale and plans to move to a new space.

The organization occupies about 12,000 square feet of the 30,000-square-foot building at 4801 S. Broad St., also known as Building 100. The remaining space is leased to other tenants.

An asking price for the property has not been disclosed. The building has an assessed value of $5.4 million, according to Philadelphia tax records. The early 20th century building originally served as barracks for the Marine Corps.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a public-private economic development nonprofit, has owned the Navy Yard property since 2006. It purchased the building from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. for $276,700, property records show.

Though the organization hasn’t selected a new home, it’s eyeing leased space that’s about the same size it currently occupies but in a location that’s closer to the startups and investors it works closely with. Ben Franklin Technology Partners is also looking for a site that is more accessible for its collaborators and 36 employees.

“That gives you a fair amount of flexibility from out in the [University City] Science Center area to right in Center City to more kind of Old City,” Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania CEO Scott Nissenbaum said. “Train lines and the accessibility is important. We have a fair amount of entrepreneurs who don’t like to drive.”

Those entrepreneurs stand to benefit from the sale. The organization said it plans to reinvest proceeds into further funding the local startup and innovation economy.

“Our goal is a virtuous cycle of investment returns and then larger return, larger investment the next year for larger returns,” Nissenbaum said. “Because we’re barely scratching the surface on what we could do with the tech community and the intellectual property and the talent we have here, the amount of capital we have to help and support is nowhere near meeting the demand. So every extra dollar that we get, we’ll reinvest back into the community.”

Ben Franklin Technology Partners is in ongoing discussions for a new space and is waiting on a sale to sign a lease. Once a sale is goes through, Nissenbaum believes the organization should be a hot commodity in the office market.

“The reality is, we’re going to drive a lot of activity,” Nissenbaum said. “We have 200 portfolio companies. We make 30 to 40 investments in early stage tech companies in this region every year. We have partnerships with most of the major academic centers and corporations. So our hope is that wherever we end up, that’s going to be a lightning rod for activity and exposure.”

Nissenbaum said the “exploding” development underway surrounding Building 100 factored into the decision to list its property.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners was among the first to take space in the early wave of the Navy Yard’s redevelopment. Since then, the Navy Yard’s renaissance has gotten underway with sprawling offices rising alongside forthcoming retail, residential and hotel spaces.

The Navy Yard has attracted big-name tenants like FS Investments and Urban Outfitters, but Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ target audience of early stage startups and co-investors aren’t there. Nissenbaum said that the initial idea was to create an “innovation center” at the Navy Yard, but that didn’t materialize as envisioned.

Nissenbaum believes the highest and best use for a buyer of Building 100 would be as an owner-occupier like Ben Franklin Technology Partners is.

The building is being marketed by Jim Galbally, Alex Breitmayer and Brett Segal of JLL.

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