PHILADELPHIA — Crescent Heights has paid $30 million for the Arts Tower, making it the fourth residential project the Miami-based real estate company has taken on in Center City.
Crescent Heights plans to convert the Arts Tower, a 16-story apartment building at the corner of Juniper and Locust streets, into condominiums. A local partnership going under the name Locust Street Properties was the seller, said Josh Nadel, a broker with Mallin Panchelli Nadel who arranged the transaction.
The building currently has 373 apartments and 15,000 square feet of commercial space. It was originally built as a hotel in 1922 called Sylvania House and converted into apartments in 1973 and later renovated in 1997. At that time, the building was renamed the Arts Tower to seize on its proximity to the Avenue of the Arts, Nadel said.
Crescent Heights has completed three other apartment conversions in Philadelphia and focuses on developments in downtown areas. Its first local project was taking Korman Suites at Buttonwood Square and turning it into City View I and City View II. It then took 2601 Pennsylvania Ave., a 490-unit apartment building, and recast it as condos called 2601 Parkway. Crescent also completed the conversion of 2101 Chestnut St., which was called the Ambassador and is now Riverwest condominiums.
Each project has sold out.
“I believe one of the reasons they are so successful is they have captured the first-time homebuyer wanting a fashionable urban lifestyle at reasonable prices,” Nadel said. Smaller units in each of its projects began in the low $100,000 range.
Natalie Kostelni, Reporter
Philadelphia Business Journal
