One South Broad - History

History

In the late 1920s, numerous high-rises were being built in Center City Philadelphia. Among the businesses constructing their own skyscrapers was Wanamaker's department store. Under direction of Wanamaker President William L. Nevin, Wanamaker's decided to expand its Philadelphia store by constructing a new building that would contain a store catering to the "Philadelphia gentleman". Nevin directed Wanamaker's to buy property on South Broad Street across the street from Philadelphia City Hall. The land was the site of two late-19th-century 13-story high-rises. On the corner of Broad and Penn Square stood the Lincoln Building, originally called the Betz Building. South of that stood the Liberty Building on the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets. Both buildings were demolished in 1926 to make way for the Lincoln-Liberty Building.

The Lincoln-Liberty Building, completed in 1932, was intended to partly house a large men's department store and offices. The building's cornerstone was set on October 1, 1932 with a ceremony attended by William L. Nevin and Wanamaker executives from New York City, Paris and London. The Wanamaker Men's Store opened on October 12, 1932, with four Wanamaker buglers blowing a reveille and the ringing of the building's Founders Bell. Opening during the Great Depression, Nevin said the new building was a sign of the store's faith that the economy would improve. Intended to rival European department stores in size and selection, the men's store ordered US$2,000,000 worth of merchandise and was the largest store of its kind in the world. As early as 1939 there were rumors the men's store would close, but Wanamaker's would not close the store unless a replacement tenant would agree to rent the space. When a new tenant was ready to take the store's place in the 1950s, the men's store was relocated to the Wanamaker Building down the street.

In the early 1950s, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) needed to expand into a larger space than it currently occupied. On November 3, 1952, the bank bought the Lincoln-Liberty Building for US$8,750,000. PNB president Frederic A. Potts said, "The purchase of this building will enable the Philadelphia National Bank more adequately and efficiently to support the large-scale industrial and commercial expansion under way in this city." The bank spent millions of dollars modernizing the building and converting the former department store floors to banking space. Among the changes was the addition of a sign with the bank's initials in 1955. The bank officially opened in what was now called the PNB Building on January 16, 1956. The opening included turning on a rooftop weather indicator and celebration of the 250th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth.

The building was owned by the PNB and later its parent company CoreStates until it was sold to the JPMorgan Strategic Property Fund in 1996 for almost US$28.5 million. In 1998 the building's second-largest tenant, law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, left for One Logan Square. The resulting vacancy prompted the owners to renovate the building, renamed One South Broad, at a cost of US$10 million. Renovations included modernizing the elevators, security and safety systems and converting the lower floors to retail and restaurant space. The renovations took eighteen months and One South Broad was officially rededicated on May 3, 2000.

In April, 2003 JPMorgan sold One South Broad to real-estate investor David Werner for US$48 million. Ninety-percent occupied in 2003, One Broad Street's largest tenant was Wachovia. Wachovia had gained office space in the tower after merging with First Union Corporation, which had merged with CoreStates in 1998. In 2006 Wachovia re-negotiated its lease, which was set to expire in 2010. After looking at other potential space in Center City, Wachovia made a deal to stay in One South Broad and three nearby properties, the Witherspoon Building, Wells Fargo Building, and the neighboring Widener Building, until the 2020s.