JLL Philadelphia Creative Office Report

Well it’s here, the long anticipated JLL Philadelphia Creative Office report has hit news stands!

The report highlights some interesting trends in the Philadelphia real estate market that make it conducive to creative office space. Most interesting is the push toward fringe neighborhoods where older industrial buildings are being converted to commercial space in large adaptive reuse projects.

The perfect combination of affordable rents and unique architectural features and amenities make this building class attractive to atypical companies looking for differentiated space in a wide range of sizes. These buildings can house a variety of tenant types from coworking and maker space to TAMI sector businesses that fall under the expanded definition of “maker”.

Geographically, these spaces hug the traditional CBD and spread across the Riverwards reaching North toward older industrial swaths of land representing close to 2 million square feet of space. Arts + Crafts Holdings is delivering over 1.5 million square feet of space in the Callowhill sub market which has seen an increase in demand due to rapid residential development in nearby Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods. The massive industrial buildings lend themselves to creative communities as they can act as self contained hubs of activity and innovation through well designed amenities and programming. Additionally, anchor employers like URBN in the Navy Yard continue to attract entrepreneurial talent whose spinoff business in turn is eager to offer exciting space for their startup.

The continued growth of urban centers and desire of younger workforce to be close to places of employment suggest that these trends will continue into the foreseeable future.