New York investor buys prime Walnut Street building, lands new retail tenant

A New York investor has paid $5.34 million for 1617 Walnut St., a two-story building in the center of Philadelphia’s High Street retail corridor.

The nearly 7,000-square-foot building was put up for sale in late 2019 by a local family who had it in a trust and listed for $7.5 million. The price that it ended up selling for is a reflection of how the pandemic has affected real estate and the building, which has been vacant for the last roughly five years but the new owner did secure a tenant, Free People, to lease the space.