The transaction brings the class A building's occupancy to 95%, says Triple Net Properties president Louis Rogers. Merrill Lynch is paying about $621,789 in gross annual rent or an estimated $7.46 million over the entire 12-year lease, based on the building's quoted rate of $21 to $22 per sf, according to Downtown brokers familiar with the property. The tenant is relocating to the 18th floor from the 11th floor. Other name tenants in the building are Sunoco, the Day & Zimmerman law firm and Zurich Insurance.

Triple Net purchased 1818 Market St. for a group of tenant-in-common buyers in February from a partnership that included the Stamford, CT-based Ashforth Co. and GE Asset Management, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The $152.8-million acquisition price equated to $155.44 per sf, a number that is below today's estimated accelerated replacement cost of a minimum $200 per sf for a comparable structure, area construction sources tell GlobeSt.com.

In the metro Philadelphia office market, Triple Net also owns the Public Ledger Building in the Independence Mall submarket and 300 Four Falls, a 298,371-sf class A building that was purchased for $191 million in West Conshohocken in 2003.