PHILADELPHIA-Greater Germantown Housing Development Corp. has obtained $4.2 million to refinance and renovate Burgess Plaza, a 125,000-sf retail and office center at Chelten and Wayne Avenues here. The funding includes a $2.7-million first mortgage from Sovereign Bank, an $800,000-second mortgage from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. and the remainder in city and state grants.
PIDC's portion is from a growth loan program available to expanding Philadelphia institutions at below-market rates. Grant funds came from the Commonwealth's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program and the City Commerce Department's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.
GGHDC acquired the property in 1998. At that time it was 40% leased to retail tenants. With the new funding, it will renovate 20,000 sf and consolidate offices of Germantown Settlement, its parent company, there; upgrade additional space for other tenants; and launch a marketing campaign. Other tenants in the building are an 18,000-sf charter school, a card shop, a bank, doctors' offices and the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
GGHDC is a not-for-profit community development corporation founded in 1977 to address concerns over vacant housing in the Lower Germantown section of the City. Since then, it has become the city's largest community-development corporation and now owns and operates a significant commercial and residential real estate portfolio. Among the properties in the portfolio are more than 100 units of housing for the elderly, the 228-unit Cricket Court Commons apartment complex and the 20,000-sf Freedom Square retail center.
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