KoP to get new hotel, 390 apartments and refurbished office building

Source, Philadelphia Business Journal, Natalie Kostelni

Three projects are set to get underway along North Gulph Road in Upper Merion, continuing the robust development activity that King of Prussia has been experiencing during the last several years.

The projects represent tens of millions of dollars in investment and highlight that the development continues to involve a variety of property types, underscoring the demand that King of Prussia has from a range of users. These three developments concern the hospitality, office and multifamily sectors and are clustered along North Gulph Road where the township has already been experiencing a great deal of real estate investment.

The owner of the Sheraton at Valley Forge has plans to develop a 120-room Element hotel on the property at 480 N. Gulph Road. In the fall of 2007 when Park Ridge Hotel Development of Haverford went to the township to redevelop the property, it took what had been an existing 300-room hotel down to 180 rooms and incorporated 20,000 square feet of meeting space. Under an arrangement with the township made at the time, the developer could at a later date add a 120-room hotel and is seeking to exercise that now, according to township documents. The site totals a little more than nine acres.

Next door at 500 N. Gulph Road, Brandywine Realty Trust received approval for the redevelopment of an existing five-story, 100,820-square-foot vacant office building that was built in the 1970s. The real estate investment trust will be re-doing the facade, adding atriums and amenity spaces as well as about 3,000 square feet of additional office space. As part of the project, Brandywine is also developing a single-story parking deck that will be located on a parcel behind the building and adjacent to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and have 100 spaces, according to township documents.

The project should be completed this fall, according to Brandywine.

Lastly, directly across the street at the Village at Valley Forge, Realen Properties is teaming up with Hanover to develop another apartment project at the site. This one will have 390 apartments and a parking garage and join five other multifamily developments at the property some of which have been completed and others in various stages of construction and among them have a total of 1,528 rental units. Hanover and Realen teamed up to develop one of those projects called Hanover Valley Forge and this one is referred to as Hanover Village.