Philly’s Skyline: Room to Grow
Curbed Philly recently published a piece about the Skyline report by the commercial real estate firm JLL. The report studied the skylines of major United States cities and the buildings that make them up. Philadelphia is a city that has seen dramatically rising buildings in recent years, ever since One Liberty Place broke the “gentleman’s agreement” in place and built higher than the statue of William Penn atop City Hall. Next year, Philly’s skyline will grow even taller with the completion of the Comcast Technology Center, the tallest tower in the city and state of Pennsylvania. According to JLL, however, Philadelphia’s skyscrapers and other tall buildings are still indicative of room to grow, even despite the steady influx of new, tall construction.
Rent in Philadelphia is cheap, as evidenced by this chart showing its average skyline rent.
“Things are really good by Philadelphia standards, but if you take a moment and look outside of region itself, we do have a long way to go,” said Lauren Gilchrist, vice president and director of research at JLL Philadelphia to Curbed Philadelphia. “There is opportunity here that we’ll continue to see as our economy and population expand.”According to JLL, there is around 2.1 million square feet of new construction being built in Philly that’s set to change its skyline. Gilchrist mentioned that Philly’s skyline accounted for only about seven percent of the whole country’s tall buildings, which is a small percentage in relation to Philadelphia’s size. In comparison, New York City’s skyline makes up 34 percent of the country’s new 35 million square feet of skyline construction.
Skyscraper rent is also some of the cheapest in America. In Philadelphia, the average asking rent per square foot is $31.18. In San Fransisco, rent is more than doubled at $76.11 per square feet. Curbed points out that that’s even cheaper than New York’s $87.90 and Washington’s $83.09. With low vacancy and all kinds of new construction coming down the pipeline, it’s about to be a great time to be a landlord in Philadelphia, JLL notes.
