Keystone Development + Investment's team knew that Conshohoken, a Philadelphia suburb, was a hot spot in need of a unifying thread to pull four decades of development together. So rather than wait for one, the local developer built one itself.
Through a multi-layered, six-year process, the Conshohoken-based real estate company wrapped up construction last year of the office portion of its Sora West development at 1 W. First Ave. The nearly 430,000-square-foot project was developed as a build-to-suit project to house the global headquarters of AmerisourceBergen, one of the nation's largest pharmaceutical distributors.
While the Gensler-designed office is the centerpiece of the project, Keystone's plans to make Sora West an anchor for the up-and-coming Conshohoken area also include a boutique hotel, plenty of parking and a package of shops and restaurants to push the neighborhood's evolution even further.
Why it matters: Conshohoken's location near major thoroughfares, affluent demographics, a panoply of mass transit options and Center City Philadelphia — just a 15-minute drive away — has attracted plenty of developers willing to invest in transitioning the borough from its days as a former steel mill into a vibrant commercial hub.
Keystone Chief Operating Officer Rich Gottleib said that despite the influx of high-end office buildings, apartments and retailers, those projects were separated by the neighborhood's lack of parking and walkability.
"The town has grown over the years and has done okay, but it has never had a true downtown," he said. Conshohoken "had all of these beautiful buildings, but no place to walk to. We decided to come in and were lucky enough to have the ability to create a sense of place and build an economic driver for the rest of the community."
With help from Conshohoken officials and the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, Keystone was able to assemble the land necessary for Sora West, which it sees as a gateway to the rest of the town.
New Hospitality: A boutique Hilton-branded hotel is slated to begin running this fall, and with the opening of a public-private plaza in the horseshoe area created by the development, Sora West is expected to attract the residential and visitor foot traffic necessary to supplement the town's commercial growth. Up to 1,500 AmerisourceBergen employees are expected to fill the office portion of the project, and Gottlieb said that with the opening of the Keystone parking garage, more people will be able to frequent the borough's shops and restaurants without the headache of figuring out where to leave their cars. As Gottlieb said, "the hotel will bring more people to stay and spend money, and the restaurants — ours and others nearby — will be a driver and up the game for the whole town."
What they're saying: "We made a big commitment, and I think it's paid off," Gottlieb said of nearing the finish line on construction for the Sora West project. "The proof is that the tenant came to us and wanted to be there for the same reasons we thought it was a good place to be. They wanted to be part of the community; not just have people come to work and stay inside the building all day. Sure, that was a pre-COVID conversation, but it's the same moving forward."
Fun fact: The hotel component of the Sora West development is partially built on the site of a 146-year-old firehouse that Keystone acquired from the borough of Conshohoken in late 2018. The firehouse structure itself, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, was preserved for the Keystone project, and it will soon serve as the entrance for the hotel and its two on-site restaurants. The first-floor dining outpost will be called 1874 Social, named after the year the fire company was established at the site shortly after two downtown fires nearly wiped out the Conshohocken business district.
CoStar's Impact Awards highlight the commercial real estate transactions and projects that have transformed their markets over the past year. The winners are chosen by independent panels of industry professionals who work in the markets they judge. A list of judges can be found here and the criteria for selecting winners can be found here.
(Updated April 1 correct full name of developer, Keystone Development + Investment.)