Campbell's advances plan for Camden office park

Campbell Soup Co. took a step forward Thursday in a long-awaited plan to create a 13-acre office park around its Camden headquarters, appointing Brandywine Realty Trust as developer.

The parcels of land, located off Newton Avenue between Admiral Wilson Boulevard and 11th Street, will become an office park for prospective users, who could benefit from amped-up tax incentives created through recent state legislation.

When Campbell's committed to staying in Camden in 2007, it also announced plans to invest in the "Gateway District" by redeveloping the area around its headquarters. In 2010, the company completed a $132 million expansion of its headquarters. In 2012, Campbell's demolished the former Sears building and has since secured multiple other properties to earmark for development.

"We're taking a long-term view of this development. This is a development that requires many steps and many partners," said Carla Burigatto, a spokeswoman for Campbell's. "It's a marathon, not a sprint."

Brandywine, which operates six of Philadelphia's 10 largest office buildings and has also been the dominant office developer in University City and Radnor, where it's based, "has consistently demonstrated a clear focus on high-quality, well-designed urban development," Richard Landers, Campbell's vice president of tax and real estate, said in a statement. Landers said the Gateway project should "create jobs and spur economic growth."

The former industrial city, whose worn rowhouse neighborhoods are home to many poor people and immigrants, has struggled to attract employers, even with extensive state aid for city government, Cooper Health System expansion, state colleges, public and charter schools, and Delaware River waterfront projects. Office vacancies in Camden County are double the empty-office rate in neighboring Burlington County, according to data compiled by Wolf Commercial Real Estate. It took $82 million in 10-year state tax incentives to lure the Philadelphia 76ers NBA team earlier this year, with a promise of offices and a practice facility in Camden.

Energy company Holtec will get $260 million in tax incentives to locate on the waterfront.

To attract tenants for Brandywine, companies that want to move to the Gateway will be offered millions more in tax incentives through Gov. Christie's state Grow New Jersey and Garden State Growth Zones programs. The landlord and state officials will target companies in Philadelphia and other nearby towns, "of course," says Jason Wolf, head of Wolf CRE. There's "plenty of incentive dollars to lure businesses to Camden."

Since 2007, the Gateway project has been in the works under Campbell, the soup, vegetable, baked-goods, and drinks maker, and the only major corporation based in Camden.

Brandywine president and CEO Gerard H. Sweeney called the project "consistent with Brandywine's philosophy of developing multimodal office and mixed-use town-center developments of consequence."

"We are delighted and fully support Campbell's selection of Brandywine Realty Trust as the developer for Camden's Gateway District," Mayor Dana L. Redd said in a statement. "I expect a developer of Brandywine's caliber to deliver a top-notch project." With help from state financial support, she added, "we feel Camden is once again poised to become the economic engine of the region."

Marge Boccuti, Brandywine's manager of investor relations, said in an e-mail that Brandywine still has to go through the planning process before it had any details or schematics.