Amazon rents lots of warehouses in the Philly area. Now it owns a building here too

Source, Philadelphia Inquirer
Amazon has paid $26.5 million for an aged office property in King of Prussia, a regional first for the company that until now has leased — rather than owned — its real estate in the Philadelphia area.

Amazon.com Services LLC bought the two-story, 230,000-square foot building in June from an affiliate of Malvern-based investor Eli Kahn, which had purchased the 57-year-old property just two months earlier for $2.5 million less than the e-commerce giant paid, records show.

Kahn bought the building at 760 Moore Rd., not far from I-76 and U.S. Routes 202 and 422, from a unit of the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Amazon leases nearly 60 existing or soon-to-be-completed warehouses of at least 100,000 square feet across the Greater Philadelphia region, according to market tracker the CoStar Group. And its Prime Now unit owns a smaller property in University City that it uses as an express-delivery hub.
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The company also plans to build a new warehouse in Southwest Philadelphia on a 29-acre industrial site it has a deal to buy after outbidding SEPTA, which had previously planned to build a trolley shed at the property.

Adrian Ponsen, CoStar’s analytics director for Philadelphia, said he expects Amazon to redevelop the King of Prussia office property into another such warehouse. The company already leases a 110,00 square foot facility a few blocks away and likely aims to boost its operations in the area, he said.

“Amazon distribution centers have proliferated across the Philadelphia area in recent years but it rarely takes ownership of its sites,” Ponsen said. “When it does, it’s usually to ensure they can continue to grow in strategic, hard-to-access locations. That’s likely what this acquisition is about, given the location near the intersection of a number of key highways.”
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Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly declined to comment on the acquisition, citing company “policy not to provide information on our future roadmap.”

“Amazon is constantly exploring new locations and weighing a variety of factors when deciding where to develop sites to best serve customers,” he said.

Amazon also owns the Whole Foods grocery chain, which has stores across the region. Additionally, it has opened a supermarket under its own Amazon Fresh brand in Warrington, with plans for another store in Bensalem.

Further Amazon Fresh stores are planned as part of a proposed apartment complex at Fifth and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia, and in Broomall and Havertown, the Philadelphia Business Journal has reported.