Equus and Partner Selling Office Buildings in Ellis Preserve

Conference Center, Ellis Preserve, Newtown Square, PA

NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA— Equus Capital Partners and its investment partner in the Ellis Preserve in Newtown Square, PA have decided to offer the existing office buildings for sale. “We liked the property quite a bit, we’ve been working on it for a number of years,” Stephen M. Spaeder , senior vice president of Equus Capital Partners , tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. “Our investment partner is interested in monetizing their interest and selling.” Ellis Preserve is a unique, 218 acre mixed-use community situated at the intersection of Routes 252 and 3 in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, 15 minutes west of Philadelphia and part of the area known as the Philadelphia Main Line.  Originally the site of a girls’ school built in the 1920s that operated until the 1970s, it later served as the site of corporate offices for ARCO Chemical . In 1997, software company SAP acquired the property but never expanded operations and later resold the tract to Equus , which later developed office space for Sunoco and Main Line Health . The present offering will include approximately 596,000 square-feet of existing office and amenity space situated on approximately 40 acres overlooking the Campus Green.  The space is presently 98 percent leased. “We have additional development opportunities and activities here at the property,” says Spaeder. “The entire property is 218 acres, so the portion we are now offering for sale is about 600,000 square feet, on about 40 of the 218 acres, so we’ll have continuing interest in the overall development of the master plan that we envisioned 12 years ago.” Since acquiring the entire 218 acre campus in June 2004 from SAP , Equus and its partner, which was not named, have completed major redevelopment projects affecting all of the office campus buildings while seeking development approvals for a mixed use town center development on the remaining development land. From the beginning, the joint venture has been focused on integrating economically viable development plans with the site’s rich historical legacy. “We developed the master plan where we would have retail, hotel, housing, but in addition to that, with respect to the existing assets, we really developed cool space, space that is unique, and we loaded it up with amenities,” said Spaeder.  “We have a 10,000 square-foot restaurant, a 20,000 square-foot gym, 12,000 square-foot conference center. We have various conference rooms available for meetings and ad hoc gatherings throughout the campus. These are the features we began to put into this campus a number of years ago, and we see that trend now catching up, where everybody’s trying to figure out how to do this. We really did accomplish it with Ellis, in part because of its unique setting.

Ellis Preserve Building H, Newtown Square, PA

Other development on the property is continuing. In 2015, the Joint Venture entered into an agreement to sell approximately 22 acres of land to Toll Brothers on which the home builder will build 76 luxury townhomes. That transaction is expected to close in the spring of 2016 with construction to commence soon after.

Stephen M. Spaeder, Senior Vice President, Acquisitions and Development, Equus Capital Partners

Also in 2015, an affiliate of Equus acquired approximately 18 acres from the Joint Venture and commenced construction of the first phase of a mixed-use project which will include a 51,700 square-foot Whole Foods , a 136 room Hilton Garden Inn , and 58,000 square-feet of additional shops and restaurants. Equus says that completion of this first phase will be early in 2017. In 2016, an Equus affiliate will acquire approximately 8 acres of land from the Joint Venture on which it will develop Madison at Ellis Preserve , a luxury apartment community to be operated by Madison Apartment Group , a wholly-owned subsidiary of Equus . CBRE has been appointed exclusive listing broker for the transaction. The CBRE team will be led by Robert Fahey .