PhillyDeals: Marshalls store coming to Staples site at 10th and Market

Does Center City need another moderate-priced clothing retailer?

Marshalls has leased the Staples site, a onetime Woolworth's, at 1046 Market St. Marshalls owner TJX Cos. Inc. of Massachusetts, which opened a one-million-square- foot, 1,000-worker, state-subsidized warehouse in Northeast Philadelphia a decade ago, took the space after Staples declined to renew with landlord Jenel Management Co. of New York.

Metro Commercial Real Estate broker Donna Drew sold Marshalls on the 26,000-square- foot location; Staples is consolidating stores at 15th and Chestnut streets and on Delaware Avenue. Metro boss Steve Gartner called the switch "a net win for Center City," since Marshalls isn't already in the neighborhood.

"Market Street is well-positioned to become one of the city's premier retail corridors, which is why we are investing in our property and adjusting the tenant mix," Jenel Management president Michael Hirschhorn said in a statement. He didn't return calls.

Gartner said the competing Ross store at Eighth and Market and the Old Navy in the nearby Gallery are busy, showing there is demand for more.

TJX has been expanding Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, and its other chains as sales rise, while bigger chains have lost business to the struggling economy and online competition.

Marshalls opened a South Philly store last year; it was recruited for Center City by the Philadelphia Retail Market Alliance, an affiliate of Paul Levy's Center City District.

"We met with Marshalls" at the International Council of Shopping Centers meeting in 2010 in Las Vegas, alliance co-chair Michelle Shannon told me. Then, her group invited Hirschhorn and broker Michael Katz to visit so the city could promote its recent residential, hotel, and restaurant growth as a retail magnet.

Hirschhorn "was like, 'Wow,' " Shannon said. "They own lots of different properties, and we were able to get him to see that maybe there were higher, better uses."

There's "enough business to go around," she added. "I hope they include home goods - we don't have nearly enough" for Center City's growing population.

The neighborhood is part of the new Commercial Advertising District, where the Gallery's owner, Ron Rubin's Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, and other landlords hope to add Times Square-style lighted signs to draw night shoppers.