In era of hybrid work, Post Bros. plans office building in a neighborhood with thousands of new homes

The Post Bros. development group is planning a new office building across from the Piazza and next to Liberties Walk in Northern Liberties.

“We’re talking to big defense or pharmaceutical companies that have offices in the region and employ a lot of [younger] engineers,” said Michael Pestronk, CEO and cofounder of Post Bros. “Their impression is that this is the neighborhood where a lot of those employees want to live, so they want to be here too.”

Pestronk says discussions with prospective tenants for the proposed building at 1022-1030 N. Second St. are going well, but they don’t yet have any leases to announce. Post Bros. thinks it can get a deal inked in the first half of this year, with the goal of breaking ground in 2025.

According to Pestronk, the company will only move forward if tenants are secured for a majority of the building. The goal is to have one or two major users, not a multi-tenant office building.

Post Bros. has long envisioned building offices near Piazza Alta, its new high-end apartment development, but pulled back plans as the market froze during the pandemic and its aftermath.

But as thousands of new homes have been built in Northern Liberties, Fishtown, and parts of Kensington, major companies have expressed interest in workspace for the area. As leases wind down on large office footprints rented before the pandemic, many users are looking for a smaller amount of space — and sometimes multiple smaller spaces to ensure ease of commute for different groups of workers.

“There’s always demand as leases expire from big companies, but there hasn’t been much new office development,” said Pestronk. “These are users that already have a big presence in the region, as opposed to tech companies coming from outside.”

Office vacancy in the city and the larger region is around 20%, and construction of new space is rare as hybrid work has become the norm.

But many employers and building owners think that workers will be much more likely to go to an office job regularly if they can walk there, and the companies Post Bros. have been negotiating with are interested in opening satellite locations for younger workers in and around some of Philadelphia’s most popular neighborhoods.

Post Bros. plans an eight- to 12-story building, of about 164,000 square feet, with about 15,000 square feet of retail. Parking would be provided on site, either underground or in some other way that wouldn’t be visible from the street.

Pestronk said some details, like the amount of parking, will depend on the tenants. He also emphasized that they haven’t brought the concept to neighborhood groups yet, so aspects of the building could change based on feedback.

The company has two different design concepts: a simpler design with cheaper rents, and a higher-end, more expensive model. He said they took inspiration in their designs from Google’s building at Canary Wharf in London and Starwood Capital’s new offices in Miami.

“We’re not looking at a glassy, curtain wall, high-rise building, but a modern, tech kind of office,” said Pestronk. “It will fit in with the neighborhood and preserve the existing Liberties Walk and retail.”

The move comes as the WeWork in Northern Liberties at 1010 Hancock St., another Post Bros. property, closed last year. The company will turn that space into apartments.