Radnor Corp., then a subsidiary of Sunoco, developed the 27-story, 667,825-sf office building at 1801 Market St., designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, in 1980. According to public records, Rubenstein acquired the asset in June 1994 for $10 million. It served as Sunoco's headquarters for many years. However, as GlobeSt.com previously reported, Sunoco exited the building for Mellon Center in fall 2005, leaving the top 12 floors, or approximately 400,000 sf, vacant.

Renovations will encompass the main entrance, floor lobbies, elevators, all common and tenant areas, and upgrades to the exterior plaza on 18 Street, including new stonework, outdoor furniture and planters. "We look forward to reinvigorating it and repositioning it as a class A property," Robert Watman, VP of acquisitions for New York City-based Sterling, tells GlobeSt.com. "This is a signature asset in Market Street West, the epicenter of the CBD."

Watman says Sterling will work closely with Greenville, which is based here and headed by Daniel Philip Busch. Because the building was designed and constructed as a corporate headquarters, Busch says it has safety and engineering components that exceed those in more recent construction. He points out that Ten Penn was the first commercially owned office building here to win the Energy Star award, "22 years after it was built."