Philly court divisions to relocate after Arch St. building sold to create apartments

The Philadelphia County court's probation and pretrial divisions are leaving their current home at 1401 Arch St., which is to be converted into apartments, according to a broker with the commercial real estate firm CBRE who helped arrange the agencies' move.

The First Judicial District of Pennsylvania departments will relocate to a 120,000-square-foot space at 714 Market St., beside the National Park Service's Declaration House at Seventh and Market Streets, by the end of 2018, CBRE senior vice president Michael Kane said Thursday in a news release.

The 220,300-square-foot 1401 Arch St. building at Broad and Arch Streets, which now has a McDonald's restaurant on its ground floor, was recently acquired from Swiss pension-fund adviser AFIAA by Philadelphia-based Alterra Property Group, which plans the apartment conversion, CBRE said.

The owner of the 266,000-square-foot 714 Market St. building, the Brooklyn-based Leser Group, was represented in the lease by Vincent Jolly of CVA Commercial Group.

The First Judicial District "now has the opportunity to vacate a building that was functionally obsolete for their purposes and custom-design new space in a location that is accessible to the courts, their clients, and employees," Kane, who represented the court, said in the release.

Alterra did not respond to a phone message seeking details of the apartment-conversion plan.