Posel lists 16 Philadelphia-area retail properties with more than $81 million in published asks

Posel Management Company is marketing 16 retail properties, most of them in Northeast Philadelphia and the rest in Voorhees and Westmont in South Jersey and Levittown in Bucks County, and will sell them one at a time or as a single package, with the published asks adding to more than $81 million, according to reporting by the Philadelphia Business Journal carried by The Real Deal.

At 99.8 percent occupancy across more than 631,000 square feet on 64 acres, the portfolio gives a Northeast Philadelphia buyer the occupancy number it would lean on hardest; the 64 acres beneath those buildings suggest parking-heavy sites with room for pad development or eventual redevelopment.

At the top of the range sits Krewston Shopping Center, 60,000 square feet offered at $20 million with Wawa and Dollar General among its tenants, or roughly $333 a square foot; at the bottom is the International Central Gospel Church building, listed for under $500,000.

Per-foot terms are how an operator's trade gets priced; our reporting on the Dime's Williamsburg commercial pieces put a landmark hall at $145 a square foot and its office base at $216. The $81 million aggregate reflects only the listings carrying a published price, which makes it a floor for the 16-property offering rather than a valuation of it. Krewston's number will be read against a market that is tightening: Greater Philadelphia retail absorbed more than 100,000 square feet in the second quarter, the third consecutive quarter of occupancy improvement, and the vacancy rate slipped quarter-over-quarter to 8.1 percent, according to CBRE.

Marcus & Millichap's Scott Woodard, Derrick Dougherty and Mark Krantz are running the marketing. Woodard told the Business Journal that retail of this quality seldom appears in the Philadelphia area and is rarer still at this scale.

Retail capital's scarcity premium has been anchored to grocery covenants, and this portfolio tests a cheaper version of that thesis. Wawa and Dollar General are not supermarket credit, so a Krewston clearing anywhere near $333 a foot would suggest convenience and discount tenancy can carry a Northeast Philadelphia ask on their own; a wide miss would say occupancy is not the variable buyers are paying for, and the covenant is.

Selling property by property puts the price discovery in the individual trades, and the three less local assets are the likeliest to draw regional operators already dense in South Jersey or Bucks County, though the coverage does not identify prospective buyers. Posel's website describes a Philadelphia-area portfolio of more than 1 million square feet spanning office buildings, shopping centers, single-tenant retail, multifamily, hotels, an athletic complex and a self-storage facility. A buyer underwriting all 16 properties is underwriting a church building alongside a Wawa-anchored center; the first individual closing will say more about Northeast Philadelphia strip pricing than the $81 million aggregate does.