Rather than trigger panic over the emptying of more downtown office space, where the vacancy rate has hovered between 12 and 15 percent, landlords have largely regarded the Glaxo decision as an opportunity to reimagine a pocket of the city.
That certainly is the outlook of Dave Campoli, regional vice president for CommonWealth REIT, who would have reason to freak. His company is the landlord of the 600,000-square-foot One Franklin Plaza, larger of the two properties Glaxo will start moving out of at the end of next year. A Sheraton hotel separates the properties.
"The way we're looking at One Franklin Plaza is almost like a blank slate," Campoli said last week.
The only thing keeping him from a meltdown over the prospect of watching 24 stories of office space go dark is the $786 million Pennsylvania Convention Center expansion, which debuts Friday. Much anticipated for its hoped-for economic impact on the city, the addition extends the 18-year-old Convention Center several blocks west to Broad Street, putting an entrance just two blocks east of One Franklin Plaza's lobby, which could, for instance, become a hotel lobby.
"Without it, it would have been a much more difficult proposition for us to deal with," Campoli said.
Glaxo's departure still smarts, he said, because CommonWealth REIT had been working with Glaxo on plans for a $110 million redevelopment of One Franklin, built in 1979.
The remake would have included outfitting offices with floor-to-ceiling glass, creating a six-story atrium, and replacing the building's heating and air-conditioning systems with energy-efficient models as part of an effort to bring the building up to the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.
