Uptown office building may finally get owner

One Chatham is mostly vacant

After spending more than a year on the market, One Chatham Center, a nearly vacant Uptown office building erected during the city’s first renaissance, may finally have a new owner.

Danielle Alvarez, a senior associate at NAI Global, a New York firm that has been marketing the real estate, confirmed the building is under agreement to be purchased.

She would not divulge the proposed buyer, but it is believed to be Core Realty, the same Philadelphia developer that bought the former Macy’s/Kaufmann’s department store Downtown for $15 million last year.

Neither Michael Samschick, Core’s CEO, nor Randy Mineo, its executive vice president, could be reached for comment.

One Chatham Center has been on the market since HSBC Bank USA paid $2,321 to claim it at sheriff sale in April 2015. HSBC ended up with the property after filing a complaint in foreclosure, charging that Elteq Partners I Limited Partnership, then the building owner, hadn’t made mortgage payments since February 2014.

That triggered a default requiring Elteq to repay the entire balance, one that totaled $15.2 million with interest, late fees and other charges.

The sale affects only the first floor and floors 3 to 9.

The Marriott City Center hotel occupies the rest of the 20-story structure. It is separate from the office portion and was not part of the sheriff sale or foreclosure.

If NAI Global completes the sale, the new owner will have some work to do. The building is nearly 85 percent vacant, according NAI marketing materials, and has been stung by some big losses in recent years.

Core Realty is converting the Macy’s building into a mix of residential, retail and hotel space, and could be eyeing a similar type of development, perhaps with some office, at One Chatham.

Dan Adamski, managing director of the Jones Lang LaSalle real estate firm, called One Chatham a “zombie building,” explaining that it has space available that could be of interest to corporate users but no owner yet willing to invest the kind of money needed to attract them.

As a bank, HSBC wasn’t willing to sink that kind of capital into the property. But a new owner might be, he said.

Mr. Adamski said One Chatham is in a good location near Consol Energy Center and the former Civic Arena site being redeveloped by the Penguins’ hockey team, and has access to parking.

The building also is near the park to be built over Interstate 579 to connect the arena site and the Hill District to Downtown. That could be a “significant benefit,” Mr. Adamski said.