Part of IRS site in Northeast Phila. is sold

Another industrial site on the Roosevelt Boulevard has sold, this time to an undisclosed buyer, raising the possibility that another shopping center on the busy thoroughfare may be on the horizon.

The site, at 11501 Roosevelt Blvd., is one of several in a complex now leased by the Internal Revenue Service, which has plans to leave Northeast Philadelphia. Under plans still being developed, some IRS operations there would move to renovated space vacated last year by the U.S. Postal Service at 30th and Market Streets, University City.

The site is part of the 650-acre Philadelphia Industrial Park, one of many sites totalling 2,000 acres developed over the last 49 years by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. (PIDC), a city economic development agency.

The PIDC's first deal, in 1959, was the old Whitman Chocolate Factory, near the IRS complex. That site was rezoned for retail several years ago and is now the Whitman Square Shopping Center.

Another part of the IRS complex, a 430,000-square-foot-building at 11601 Roosevelt Boulevard, was recently acquired by Cedar Shopping Centers Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust, said John Grady, senior vice president of the PIDC.

"A shopping center REIT would not buy the site unless it has plans to build a shopping center," Grady said.

This worries the PIDC, Grady said. "Our inventory of land for industrial use is below 300 acres now, the lowest it has been in decades," he said in an interview this morning.

He said the city may oppose rezoning for retail land that has the utilities, roads and other infrastructure for next-generation industrial uses.

"The industrial opportunities are different from the 1950s and 1960s, but they still represent a tremendous opportunity for economic growth," Grady said.

The site just sold has been owned since 1985 by members of the Binswanger family, who also own the Philadelphia-based Binswanger Companies global real estate firm that manages the property.

Frank Binswanger Jr., co-chairman of the real estate firm with his brother, John, said the sale agreement specified that he identify the buyer only as "11501 Roosevelt Partners LP."

He could not even disclose the type or location of the company behind the deal.

The site the Binswangers sold includes 15 acres and a 230,000 square foot air conditioned building that was built in 1970 for the book publisher J.B. Lippincott Co.

The site, adjacent to the Northeast Philadelphia Aiport, is near the U.S. Route One entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and not far from its interchange with Interstate 95.