Penn Beer Sales & Service has purchased the sprawling Hatfield warehouse it has called home for years, closing a $48.5 million deal that also included adjacent land. The company, a Hatfield-based wholesale distributor of alcoholic beverages, bought the 324,796-square-foot manufacturing facility it fully occupies at 2801-2805 Township Line Road from Maguire Hayden Real Estate Co.
The sale, which included the industrial building and adjacent land parcels, worked out to roughly $149 per square foot, according to CoStar. Penn Beer acquired adjacent land as part of the deal, the outlet reports.
From Tenant to Owner on Township Line Road
The move caps a long relationship between Penn Beer and the Hatfield property. Maguire Hayden Real Estate Co. first purchased the warehouse leased to Penn Beer from S.S. Gretz Beverage back in October 2019 for $27 million, or about $83 per square foot, the same figures the outlet's earlier report also cites. The Philadelphia Business Journal account of that 2019 deal described the building as 327,000 square feet, while the newest sale lists it at 324,796 square feet. An earlier Philadelphia Inquirer report pegged it at 300,000 square feet when Penn Beer first relocated there from its longtime Domino Lane base in Manayunk.
That relocation itself was tied to changing conditions back in the city. The Inquirer reported that increased residential development in Manayunk had slowed truck access near the Schuylkill River bridge, pushing the distributor toward the suburbs. The same report noted that Hatfield had become more desirable as a warehousing center in recent years, a shift the paper linked to road projects involving Pennsylvania 309 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Room to Grow Next Door
Real estate listings from Maguire Hayden describe the adjacent land as a fully approved and engineered site, with the firm telling prospective buyers, “We are pleased to feature a fully approved and engineered land site for sale in Hatfield, PA.” The listings place the parcel within the 780,000-square-foot Industrial Park in the North Penn Logistics Center and tout convenient access to Route 309 and Interstate 476.
The listings are not entirely consistent on what can be built there, however. One description on Maguire Hayden's site says the land is fully approved for a 30,000-square-foot industrial building, while a separate listing on the same page describes the site as approved for a 32,000-square-foot, single-story industrial property. Hoodline could not determine which figure reflects the current approval.
A Growing Logistics Corridor
Penn Beer's expansion plans would add to an already busy industrial stretch of Hatfield Township. Nearby, the North Penn Logistics Park consists of two light-industrial buildings, roughly 165,000 and 168,000 square feet apiece, built on a 35-acre property, according to IMC Construction. Those buildings were constructed with tilt-wall panels poured onsite and lifted into place, featuring 35-foot clear heights and siting designed for efficient truck flow while preserving existing wetlands, the construction firm says.
Penn Beer brings decades of regional history to its newly owned facility. The company says on its website that it has been in the beer business since 1953 and now distributes brands to more than 5,000 licensees across eight counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Penn Beer also says it employs more than 225 people. The Inquirer previously noted that Penn Beer and Gretz Brothers, the warehouse's former occupant, both distribute Anheuser-Busch beers and other products from InBev breweries, underscoring the site's long history in beer logistics before Penn Beer took over the lease and, now, the deed itself.
