Ground’s Not Broken and 12 Buyers in Line

As part of his due diligence when he buys a property, Cas Holloway walks it.

Like most astute developers, he is looking at the topography, how the sun hits the site at different times of the day, and how it relates to the neighborhood surrounding it, among other things. So when Holloway walked the nearly two-acre former Main Line YMCA property in Ardmore, he knew he wanted it.

“This was a natural,” he said.

Not only did the site at the intersection of Montgomery Avenue and St. George’s Road have what Holloway likes in the look and feel of a property, it also met his other criteria. A parcel that he develops has to be in a walkable area, near shops and restaurants and be within a short walking distance of a train station. For Holloway that means the station is about a block away.

“That makes a project viable for us,” he said.

Holloway, who runs C.F. Holloway& Co., recently closed on buying the property for $6 million. It was a transaction that took nearly two years to get done as the previous owner, a partnership between Cornerstone Communities and Provco Group, took it through the lengthy, local approval process.

A plan was approved for a four-story building with 32 condominiums and Holloway is moving forward with a project on that scale but with one less condo and the addition of a 64-vehicle underground garage. At sell out, including acquisition costs, it’s more than a $40 million project. Most of the units are in the 2,400-a-square-foot range with a patio or terrace, and they are priced between $950,000 and about $1.4 million. It will be called 100 St. Georges ­— without the apostrophe.

Bernardon Haber Holloway (no relation to Cas Holloway) is the architect. The firm designed the project to blend into its neighbor across the street — Suburban Square — and the cast stone façade looks a lot like the limestone used at the shopping center. Among its interior amenities are a lobby with a fireplace, club room and fitness facility.

When Holloway got the land, he also got a list of 19 people who, early on, had notified Cornerstone they were interested in unit. Even though the purchase of the property hadn’t closed, Holloway contacted them as well as a list he had cultivated to gauge their interest. In groups, they met at the site last December and he showed them his plans.

He then took them to see his other work in Wayne, where he has in the last five years completed three successful condominium projects. He wanted these prospective buyers to get an idea of what a finished project might look like.

It worked. In the dead of winter, nine put a $10,000 deposit down and picked which units they wanted. More interest followed. Even though Holloway doesn’t expect to break ground until this fall, he now has 12 under agreement.

Written by Natalie Kostelni; Published by the Philadelphia Business Journal