GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Incentives Lure AAA to 120,000 SF on Wilmington Waterfront

WILMINGTON, DE-Philadelphia’s loss is Delaware’s gain. The waterfront here becomes the home of AAA Mid-Atlantic when the automotive membership club relocates its headquarters from the City of Brotherly Love. GlobeSt.com originally reported on the move yesterday.

“AAA will lease 120,000 sf of a 150,000-sf building to be built with AAA expansion in mind,” Riverfront Development Corp. executive director Michael S. Purzycki tells GlobeSt.com. New Castle, DE-based real estate firm the Commonwealth Group is developing the project, which will have an address on West Street. While the terms of AAA Mid-Atlantic’s lease with the Commonwealth Group have not been disclosed, according to the NAI Real Estate Planning Guide, class A office space in the Downtown area leases for about $18.50 to $28 per sf.

Come 2005, about 300 AAA Mid-Atlantic employees will occupy the new structure, which will sit at the bend in the Christina River on the site of the eight-acre Wilmington Public Works Yard. “In its search for a new headquarters, AAA Mid-Atlantic was much sought after and could have gone anywhere, but the company chose Wilmington and that says so much about our city,” Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker says in a statement.