The Philadelphia Business Journal’s Natalie Kostelni has an article out this week (link, please note its behind a pay wall) that provides some details on Philadelphia Insurance Companies’ search for a new corporate headquarters. It currently occupies 250,000 square feet in Bala Cynwyd. Conshohocken is mentioned as one of the potential destinations.

From the article:

“Philadelphia Insurance Companies has narrowed down options for potential office space after the current lease ends at its Bala Cynwyd headquarters in 2019,” said Bill Procopio, a company spokesman. “[The company] is exploring each of these options, including any incentives available, in the hopes of making a decision by the end of the third quarter in 2016.”

Procopio declined to disclose its short-list of options or answer additional questions on the
search.

Further down in the article:

Tokio Marine, which bought Philadelphia Insurance in 2008 for $4.7 billion, reportedly wants a fresh, new office environment that has modern amenities and spaces that appeal to the Millennial workforce. That is among the reasons the company is exploring several build-to-suit options in Conshohocken, Pa., and Bala Cynwyd and possibly even in Center City.

Does Conshohocken have viable options? From the article:

So long as a site has received local approvals for a new office development, it could take upwards of two years for a building to be completed.

In Conshohocken, developers including Keystone Property Group, Equus Capital Partners, O’Neill Properties Group and Oliver Tyrone Pulver have projects that could accommodate that much space that are also shovel ready.

We need to correct one item from the above quoted paragraphs. The Keystone Property Group project (the hotel, expanded office buildings, etc, at West Elm and Fayette) is not approved and thus not shovel ready. The other projects are all approved and the developers are seeking one major tenant or trying to piece together several tenants to make moving forward with construction viable. Keystone made a presentation before Borough Council last week and is going to seek approval over the next few months.

Equus’ development is at West Elm and Corson Streets (website), O’Neill’s is on the riverfront between Ash Street and Londonbury (website) and Pulver’s is located on the riverfront between the bridge and approximately Harry Street (website).

If Philadelphia Insurance Companies is indeed taking a serious look at Conshohocken, Conshohocken could wind up the home of two major corporate headquarters. While it was never mentioned publicly, it was widely discussed that O’Neill’s building was in the mix to be a new corporate headquarters for AmerisourceBergen. No deal with AmerisourceBergen has been signed.