In the post-pandemic hybrid-work environment, Philadelphia office space remains cheaper than most other major metro areas, according to a new report from the online real estate platform Commercial Cafe.
Asking rents for Philly offices were $31.26 per square foot on average as of May, the report found. That makes Philadelphia the only major market in the Northeast below the national average of $33.61 per square foot.
Relative to other major U.S. markets, only Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix recorded lower average asking rents.
Elsewhere in the Northeast, Manhattan averaged the most expensive asking rents at more than $69 per square foot, according to the report. Boston’s asking rents were around $44 and New Jersey’s were more than $35.
Philadelphia’s 18.4% office vacancy rate, meanwhile, was slightly higher than the other Northeast markets, as well as the national average of 17.6%, according to the report.
The analysis, released last week, reflected the broader challenges that all office markets are up against. In Philadelphia and elsewhere, the office landscape has shrunk since the pandemic, with many employers downsizing their space amid the rise of hybrid work.
Some Center City office buildings have plummeted in value and are now becoming apartment complexes. Among them: The iconic Wanamaker Building and Centre Square, better known as the “Clothespin building” for the sculpture outside it.
Between January and May, $220 million in office sales were recorded in Philadelphia, according to the Commercial Cafe report, and $387 million in New Jersey. In the Garden State, 630,000 square feet of offices were under construction, found the report, which did not have under-construction data for Philadelphia.
Peter Kolaczynski, the director of Yardi Research, helped compile the report, and noted the trend toward office reuse.
“The destruction of value that we have discussed for years is showing through in the sales data,” Kolaczynski said in a statement. “With this decrease cost in acquisition comes opportunity — whether that is conversions to apartments, repositioning to best-in-class office and coworking, or full-on redevelopment and revitalization projects.”
Brian and Robyn Emmons can’t sell their 12-year-old, $900,000 rowhouse in Northern Liberties in its current state.
Fissures have spread across some of the walls in their home — which was built in 2014 — and cracks radiate from many doors and windows.
Three of their neighbors on Brown Street face similar issues. They say their homes were damaged by an apartment building constructed in 2023 that’s so close to the rear of their house they can almost touch it.
One family moved out after the city Department of Licenses and Inspections declared their home unsafe in 2024.
The Emmonses want to move to South Jersey, closer to family. Instead, as they wait for their second child to be born, they feel trapped.
“The fact that my neighbor was issued an order not to occupy the house, and it’s attached to our house, it’s just really scary,” said Brian Emmons, who has been a real estate developer in Philadelphia for almost 20 years. “We are stuck.”
Along with two neighbors, the Emmonses are suing the developer of the apartment building: Brian Zoubek, president and CEO of Zoubek Properties, who has built 250 houses in Philadelphia over his roughly decade-long career.
Since graduating from Duke University in 2010, where he played basketball for the Blue Devils, including on the national champion team that year, Zoubek tried his hand at a few occupations before settling on development. He has expanded his business to the Jersey Shore, recently debuting 10 almost million-dollar townhouses at a news conference with New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
“I’m extremely proud of what we’ve built in Philadelphia,” Zoubek said in an email. “I put my own name on my work because I stand behind every project we build.”
Zoubek faces lawsuits from the owners of three properties, all alleging that he damaged their Brown Street homes. An Inquirer review of court records found that Zoubek’s companies were similarly taken to court over allegations of sloppy construction practices by their contractors in at least three prior development projects.
The eastern end of Brown Street with rowhouses (gray), the new apartment building Zoubek built next door (white), and the former school he transformed into apartments (red brick). Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The Northern Liberties rowhouses
Emmons and his neighbors sued last year alleging that the damage to their homes is the direct result of Zoubek’s redevelopment of the Mifflin School, built in 1825, just to the north of their homes.
In mid-2021, Zoubek purchased the property — the oldest surviving public school building in Philadelphia — and carved it into 15 apartments with 14 more wedged into a four-story addition on a small lot between the Brown Street homes and the historic structure.
The recent lawsuits contend that the developer dug too deep while excavating the basement of the new building and damaged their adjacent foundations. Within the three homes — which The Inquirer toured with Emmons — cracks grow in walls, floors slant, the shared garage leaks, and residents have struggled to open some windows and doorways.
The other two homeowners declined to speak on the record, citing the ongoing lawsuits. The residents of a fourth house have resolved their case against Zoubek.
“We are aware of the pending litigation and are actively defending these claims,” Zoubek said in an email. “Given the involvement of multiple parties, we are engaged in ongoing discovery and investigation and are confident the process will bear out the facts.”
Zoubek was named in two earlier lawsuits that accused his construction crews of slapdash work that damaged neighboring properties. A third suit alleged that his company’s work triggered a floor collapse that injured two deliverymen.
Zoubek said in a statement that all prior suits have been resolved.
For Emmons, the experience on Brown Street has an irony to it. Ten years ago, he was the face of development in Philadelphia as president of the Building Industry Association (BIA) — a real estate advocacy group — and vice president of a development firm Toll Brothers runs in the city.
Usually in the position of advocating for new development, Emmons counseled his neighbors when the project was announced that it was allowed by the property’s zoning and not worth resisting. But he did ask his fellow developer about his plans for the new apartment addition to the Mifflin School.
A gaping crack in a first-floor wall in a home at 301B Brown St. in Philadelphia.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“He clearly was doing things the wrong way,” Emmons said. “And I know that because I’m in the construction industry.”
Zoubek contests Emmons’ assertion. He argues that many of his 30 building projects in Philadelphia involve basement excavation next to existing properties and that the Mifflin School project was fully permitted and supervised by skilled professionals.
“That experience, combined with the engineering oversight on this project, reflects how seriously we take this work,” Zoubek said in an email. “After concerns were raised, the project was reviewed by L&I, which did not issue violations or take enforcement action.”
A trail of lawsuits
Zoubek has been building in the Philadelphia area for more than 10 years, mostly developing small apartment buildings or a handful of rowhouses in the city’s booming river ward neighborhoods.
Zoubek, at 7-foot-1-inch, was a basketball star at Haddonfield Memorial High School and got into real estate after a stint running a cream puffery and, later, as a real estate agent for Cushman Wakefield.
He started his own firm, Zoubek Properties, in 2014 and a related construction management company called Z Builds. He also cofounded another company, Catalyst City Development, with childhood friend Tyler McNeil.
As his construction business grew, his enterprises were drawn into complex litigation alleging property damage or injury caused during construction.
Brian Zoubek in his now defunct cream puff shop Dream Puffz, a pre-development venture, in 2012.ELISE WRABETZ / Staff Photographer
According to one lawsuit, Catalyst, the company Zoubek cofounded, and Manayunk-based Grit Construction worked together on a small development on Hope Street in Northern Liberties in 2019. During construction, Grit ruptured a lateral pipe connecting a sewer main to a strip of nearby businessesfacing an adjacent block of Front Street.
Exhibits from that lawsuit show Zoubek proactively contacted the neighboring property owner, reassuring him that his crews had quickly rerouted the noxious flow by splicing in PVC piping until a more permanent fix could be made.
“Broke some sort of line,” Zoubek texted to the adjacent property owner, along with a photo of the messy scene. “So we put in a temp one.”
But a week later, business owners next door were complaining about chronic plumbing issues. The temporary line had become clogged with rubble and other debris from the ongoing construction.
According to the suit, in June, the toilets and sinks at a packing business on Front Street erupted as sewage backed up and flooded into the commercial unit. The next day, a barbershop next door was inundated with filth.
A plumber came out to snake out the line but discovered that Zoubek’s crews had capped the severed line. Eventually, tenants fled.
“Our tenants cannot continue with sewage backed up into their space,” a property manager for the commercial units next door wrote to Zoubek, in a 2020 email.
Zoubek said that the case had settled but offered few other details: “The matter was ultimately resolved between the parties.”
Zoubek Properties had also hired Grit and contractor All-State Services to demolish a building under the El in Fishtown in 2019 and build several new apartments.
In 2021, the owner of a neighboring apartment complex sued, saying that during teardown crews punched holes in the side of the adjacent building, damaging its roof, framing, and supports.
According to that complaint, tenants told a property manager about “a big noise and shaking in the building” during the demolition process.
After arriving on the scene a short time later, the manager “observed All-State Services employees drinking alcohol while on the job and stumbling down off of heavy equipment,” the complaint said.
Zoubek said that his contractor eventually repaired the wall and that a claim for further damages was handled by the two insurance carriers.
“The matter is fully resolved,” he said.
The new luxury townhouses on Kentucky Avenue known as the Residences at Orange Loop in Atlantic City, which Zoubek revealed with New Jersey politicians earlier this year. Thomas E. Briglia / For The Inquirer
As that suit unfolded, Zoubek had another project underway in Old City, again for a small apartment complex on the 100 block of North Third Street.
In 2021, two deliverymen bringing in elevator counterweights for the construction project were told to use a rear entrance to deposit their cargo, according to a personal injury lawsuit filed the next year.
The suit contends that both the delivery company and the workers quizzed Zoubek’s crews about whether the rear entrance of the partially constructed building was structurally sound enough to handle the extreme weight of their load. They were assured that it had been inspected and was safe.
Instead, the floor collapsed, sending the men and their equipment crashing into the basement, injuring both delivery workers.
The suit was later settled for $6.5 million default judgment against the subcontractor.
“That matter was resolved through the appropriate legal and insurance processes,” Zoubek said.
Construction damages 50 rowhouses a year
Lawsuits and claims of construction damage are endemic to the real estate industry. And building in the tight confines of Philadelphia’s dense rowhouse neighborhoods can be especially contentious.
In the case of Brown Street, a spokesperson for Zoubek pointed The Inquirer to the website of Fortis Construction & Design, which built the five rowhouses there in 2014 and is now suspended by the city for “unpermitted, potentially dangerous underpinning and excavation.”
Cracks on the exterior of a home at 303A Brown St. in Philadelphia (left) on June 9. Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Emmons, however, argues that the fault lies with Zoubek: The extensive damage to the Brown Street homes appeared only after the basement was dug out for the expansion of the Mifflin in 2023.
“He can point the finger all he wants, but I hope he lies awake at night praying nobody gets injured or killed,” Emmons said in an email.
A Long Island-based developer is planning a six-story, 100-unit apartment building — with a rooftop pool — at 639-53 N. Broad St.
The property is owned by the Bill Wolf Petroleum Corp., which has expanded into retail and residential properties from its original focus on gas stations and other fuel-related real estate.
The company has already redeveloped smaller buildings in Philadelphia at Fifth and South Streets and 12th and Walnut.
The company acquired the Broad Street property in late 2021 for $6.9 million, according to city records. This week, Bill Wolf Petroleum obtained demolition permits for the existing auto-oriented and light industrial structures on the lot.
The architect for the project is Stuart Rosenberg of SgRA Architects, who has worked with Bill Wolf Petroleum on its other Center City buildings.
“They are looking for dense, urban, Center City development opportunities. They did not want to be on the outskirts like Northern Liberties or Port Richmond,” Rosenberg said. “They like Philadelphia. At the end of the day, you can build stuff here, so that’s why they’re investing in Philadelphia.”
Documents posted on the Department of Licenses and Inspections website show a 72-foot-tall project, which includes the potential for over 4,500 square feet of bi-level commercial space fronting on North Broad Street.
A parking garage is planned in the rear of the property with space for 33 vehicles as well as bike parking. It also sits directly above SEPTA’s Broad Street Line Fairmount Station.
The property has some of the most flexible zoning in Philadelphia, allowing Bill Wolf Petroleum to move forward easily.
The unit mixture will mostly be one- and two-bedrooms, with a few studio apartments. On the top floor will be between eight and 12 bi-level apartments.
For the exterior, Rosenberg is planning designs in keeping with the surroundings on North Broad Street.
“It’s going to be a classic, industrial type of vibe,” Rosenberg said. “It’s the aesthetic you’d see in a lot of New York or Philadelphia.”
The acclaimed interior design firm Stokes Architecture & Design, which has worked on properties such as Parc and La Colombe’s Fishtown flagship, is being retained as well.
The entrance to both the front lobby and garage will be on Wallace Street on the north side of the site. Retail will front on North Broad Street. In addition to the roof deck with a pool, there will be private balconies for the bi-level units on the top floor and a U-shaped courtyard on the second floor featuring additional outdoor space.
Bill Wolf Petroleum’s project is just the latest in a burst of apartment developments proposed on North Broad Street.
In the last eight months, 1,221 units have been permitted between City Hall and the southern border of Temple University’s campus. Much of the activity is clustered around the former Hahnemann University Hospital.
“This part of the city [North Broad Street] is just really dynamic right now,” Rosenberg said.
Some of the projects, however, are unlikely to break ground any time soon. Property owners like Brandywine Realty Trust obtained zoning permits after Councilmember Jeffery Young proposed a housing ban around the former Hahnemann campus.
142-44 N. Broad St. is another property slated for apartment development. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Although that bill was put on hold in the face of opposition from most stakeholders in the area — no one outside Young’s office ever publicly spoke in favor of it — the legislation prompted a rush to secure 824 apartment permits before it was shelved.
Bill Wolf Petroleum’s project, which is outside Young’s proposed ban area, stands out because it is one of the only efforts that would not involve redeveloping an existing medical, industrial, or office building for residential use.
The current interest in the North Broad Street corridor comes after an earlier boom, which saw developers like Alterra Property Group, Eric Blumenfeld, and Bart Blatstein scooping up struggling properties and vacant lots after the Great Recession.
Some of those projects came to fruition, such as Alterra’s 410-unit Tower Place at Broad and Spring Garden Streets. Others had a more circuitous fate.
North Broad organizations are watching the new developments with wary optimism.
“I’ve learned to not get excited until there are shovels in the ground,” said Shalimar Thomas, executive director at North Broad Renaissance.
But “it’s the main thoroughfare; it’s a great transportation hub, easy walkable,” Thomas said. “The potential and the bones and the structure are there. Maybe now more developers are starting to see that.”
City Council approved a bill Thursday to encourage denser and taller development around Philadelphia’s transit stations.
The legislation, a part of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s housing agenda, expands an existing law that offers development incentives to most non-single-familyproperties within a 500-foot radius of transit stations. Thursday’s Council vote expands that radius to a quarter of a mile.
It also boosts eligibility for the incentive, allowing it to include not only SEPTA rail stations but also intercity bus, PATCO, water taxi, and some bus or trolley stops.
The legislation is meant to allow more people to live near transit and boost SEPTA ridership. Mass transportation works best when more people live within walking distance of stations.
The law comes with a very Philadelphia caveat, however: City Council must opt stations into it. In most other states or cities that have this kind of transit-oriented development policy, it automatically applies to all eligible stations.
“I have not heard of that for transit-oriented development laws,” said Yonah Freemark, a lead housing policy researcher at the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.
“If you look at what Chicago, New York City, or Los Angeles has, it’s across the city. There aren’t special exemptions for aldermen or council members” to control which stations are included, Freemark said.
Under the existing law, Council members in West Philadelphia have opted in most Market-Frankford Line stations to the west of the University of Pennsylvania.
Many of the stops in Northern Liberties, Fishtown, Kensington, and Frankford are included as well, although heavily used stations like Front-Girard, York-Dauphin, and the Arrott Transportation Center are left out.
The stations already covered by the zoning incentive’s existing 500-foot radius will be automatically expanded to a quarter mile.
No stations on the Broad Street Line are currently included. Those to the south of City Hall are half in Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s district and half in Councilman Mark Squilla’s district, complicating the politics of adding the stations.
To the north, former City Council President Darrell Clarke and his successor, Jeffery Young, have not opted any of the stations on Broad Street into the transit-oriented development program and have often been skeptical of high-rise development.
“The problem with this approach is that it essentially allows City Council members who are recalcitrant to allow development to block” the transit-oriented development law, Freemark said. “It entrenches that resistance.”
Several Council members said in interviews that they hope to make use of the new law and add stations in their districts.
Councilmember Mike Driscoll, who represents much of the Lower Northeast, said he plans to use it at the two Market-Frankford Line stops in his district that are not already covered, including the Arrott Transportation Center.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents much of West Philadelphia, has long championed the legislation and said she is studying the new language to see whether she can opt in more stations.
Squilla, who opted in the Spring Garden station in Northern Liberties, said its application is more complicated on South Broad Street.
A screen shot of a Philadelphia Planning Commission study showing how many more properties will be covered by the overlay under the new law.Philadelphia Planning Commission
“Broad Street is tough because it is two separate Council districts, and [we] need to get input from the community on both sides,” Squilla said. “I would consider it but do my usual community outreach first.”
But Council President Johnson said that he is interested in adding all the South Broad stations to the expanded transit-oriented development law.
“I have no objection to transit-oriented communities, so all of mine will be in,” Johnson said. “It’s great for development and the surrounding area. I’ll probably look at it just to make sure … there’s a level of affordability.”
On North Broad Street, Young is still studying the legislation and “assessing which stations would make sense to include,” the Council member’s spokesperson said.
Properties zoned for single-family housing are not affected by the law. It also bans certain kinds of development from the area around transit stations, including one-story buildings, parking garages, and curb cuts.
The urbanist group 5th Square hadbeen meeting with City Council members in advance of Thursday’s final vote on the bill strengthening transit-oriented development.
Council President Kenyatta Johnson says he is interested in including all of the South Broad Street subway stops in the transit oriented development law. Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
Activists with the group say there is support for adding many more SEPTA stops to the law, although they think areas like North Broad Street will be much harder to get stations opted in.
“The idea that all of the stations will be opted in at once is unlikely,” said Jay Arzu, housing organizer with 5th Square and the founder of the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway Movement.
“They made the intention clear that they’ll look at it on an individual, case-by-case basis, which is disappointing for transit advocates,” Arzu said. “But we recognize it’s another step in the right direction. Sometimes you just got to take what you can get.”
The tree-lined 100 block of North Mole Street seems to cast a spell on everyone who lives there.
This cluster of 30 two-story brick houses dates to the mid-19th century — some are close to 200 years old — and has long turned residents into devotees of its artsy parties and communal life.
The street standsout from the surrounding blocks of high-rise buildings and surface parking lots, a lone historical holdout in the heart of Center City, where most rowhouses have been erased. Affordable rents two blocks from City Hall have attracted a mix of artists, students, and — for some reason — airline flight attendants.
Except, now, almost all the trees have been cut down and the mid-block pocket park torn up. Many of the homes are being redeveloped, and leases are not being renewed for the motley assortment of renters who have long populated the block.
“I’m pretty close with most people on the block, and, I mean, this sucks,” said Teddy Powell, 34, a musician who has lived on this stretch of North Mole since 2020 and can reel off the names and occupations of most people on the block.
“We’re all being forced out of the houses that we love living in,” he said.
Teddy Powell is being forced off the 100 block of North Mole along with most of the rest of the tenants.Jake Blumgart
The 100 block of North Mole Street managed to stand apart for so long because it is owned by a family trust, which also dates to the 1800s, and belongs to descendants of founding father Robert Morris. The homes on Mole Street were given historic preservation protections in 1960.
It neighbors the Central Friends Meeting, which lies just to the east and dates to the 19th century as well.
Until last year, the trust owned 25 of the 30 homes. Rents were kept low: well under $2,000 for four-bedroom homes, mostly hosting roommates, a stone’s throw from City Hall. Individual renters would often pay just hundreds of dollars a month.
That’s a deal that cannot be found in most other parts of Center City, where new buildings have an average rent of over $2,600 and median household incomes are among the highest in Philadelphia.
And the group houses on this block of Mole Street tended to be tight knit, with parties spilling into the shaded street.
From the 1980s until the COVID-19 pandemic, the block hosted the Molestice Festival, with live music, food trucks, and a pop-up bar in the pocket park tucked into the block. In 2018, cheerful chalk graffiti daubed frontages with phrases like “The Mole Hole” and “We R Sky Trash Kappa Mole.”
“We had a lot of fun here; we’ve carried on the tradition,” Powell said. “It’s all over now, though, man. The party’s over.”
Last year, a developer bought eight of the North Mole Street homes for $3.1 million.
The new owner is Purity Homes Inc. Some of the zoning documents filed with the city are signed by real estate investor Armando Ahmad, with the owner’s mailing address listed in either Arlington, Texas, or a Point Breeze rowhouse that hosts seven other real estate-related LLCs.
Ahmad did not respond to a request for comment, and the architect for the project, Carey Jackson-Yonce of Canno Design, declined to comment.
The rowhouses holding out on the 100 block of North Mole Street in Center City are conveniently located to almost everything.John Duchneskie
But at a meeting last September of the city’s Historical Commission reviewing Purity Homes’ plans for eight of the homes, Jackson-Yonce said his client planned to acquire most of the block.
“They are heavily investing on the entire block, and I think in the end they will probably be able to acquire approximately 80% of the block,” Jackson-Yonce said. “This is just probably Phase One of what will probably be at least one more, if not two, more phases.”
Jackson-Yonce noted that the family trust that has owned North Mole Street for the better part of two centuries is selling the properties in batches, perhaps to see how the developer does with the first eight.
He assured commission members that his client was “100% committed to the faithful restoration of these homes.”
The plans displayed at that meeting centered on adding square footage to the rear of the homes, while the interiors are being gutted to create more space. The Historical Commission regulates only the exteriors that can be seen from the street. Currently several of the homes lack roofs.
The exception to the plan to supersize the block is the three homes at 1527, 1525, and 1523 Cherry St., on the south end of the block, which are being demolished.
1527 to 1523 Cherry St., three 19th-century homes slated for demolition at the end of Mole Street. This photo was taken before most of the trees were cut down. Jake Blumgart
They are not protected by historic regulations. Paul Steinke of the advocacy group Preservation Alliance says the developer wants to build an eight-unit apartment block in the place of those 19th-century rowhouses.
Purity Homes’ plans for Mole Street will necessarily entail sharp rent increases due to the amount of money being spent to acquire and redevelop the homes.
Powell and two other tenants on the block say that they were recently told their leases won’t be renewed.
“Everybody that I know over here is pretty sad and disappointed about the whole thing,” said Joshua McIntyre, a more recent resident of the 100 block of Mole.
“It’s a lot of different kinds of young people, artists, and there were several bands that practice over here, but now it’s going to be like the rest of Center City, I guess,” McIntyre said.
Canno Architects’ designs promise that the exteriors of the buildings on this stretch of Mole Street will remain — as preservationists watch closely.
“This block is really a magical one,” David Traub of the preservation group Save Our Sites said at last September’s Historical Commission meeting. “It’s really a miracle that it still exists in the context in which it is situated, immediately adjacent to the very center of the city … [it’s an] extremely important remnant of Old Philadelphia in Center City.”
