Drexel University is getting ready to trade exam rooms for living rooms on North Broad Street. The school has the Arnold T. Berman building at 219-25 N. Broad St. under agreement for sale, and permits are in place to convert the 11-story medical office building into about 90 apartments. The move follows Drexel’s consolidation of College of Medicine operations in University City and adds to a recent run of residential conversions just north of City Hall.
The permit for 90 “multifamily” units was issued last Friday, and the university has confirmed that the property is “under agreement” while declining to name the buyer, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. A Drexel spokesperson told the paper that the university regularly reviews its real estate holdings as part of master planning and financial stewardship and is consolidating medical operations onto its main campus.
Local reporting also shows that the building, roughly 80,000 square feet, already has permits listing Raymond F. Rola Architecture as the contractor for the conversion, per PHILADELPHIA.Today. That permit classification is the formal green light developers typically want in hand before marketing a project to lenders and buyers.
Part of a North Broad conversion wave
The Berman proposal is the latest in a six-month boomlet of approvals just north of City Hall. Projects in the area include a 99-unit conversion of an auto showroom and a planned 361-unit reuse of the former Hahnemann University Hospital patient towers, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. City Council has floated limits on residential construction across parts of the Hahnemann campus, but the Berman building is in Councilmember Mark Squilla’s district and would not be covered by that proposal.
Why Drexel is selling
Drexel leaders have cast the sale as part of a push to concentrate teaching and clinical work back on the main campus. Drexel President Antonio Merlo has described some Center City holdings as “non-core real estate,” a line noted in recent local reporting, and the university has been moving College of Medicine functions into a new life-sciences complex in University City. That repositioning left the Berman building a likely candidate for sale or adaptive reuse, university officials said.
What’s next for the site
The sales agreement does not include a public timetable, and Drexel has declined to identify the buyer, so construction and leasing schedules remain unclear. Property records list the building at about 79,740 square feet and show a 1922 build date, details that help explain why developers often target older institutional buildings for apartment conversions, per PropertyShark. Neighbors and planners will be watching to see whether adjacent surface parking lots are folded into a larger redevelopment package, which would significantly change the scale of the project.
For Center City, the deal highlights how universities and private developers are reshaping corridors once dominated by medical and office uses into housing. City officials, neighborhood groups and potential buyers will all have a stake as permits move toward construction and the market tests demand for new apartments on North Broad.
