University of Pennsylvania Retail Master Plan
Lambert Advisory provided strategic real estate guidance to Madison Marquette and the University of Pennsylvania development team. Together we created a retail master plan with a larger scale vision and program for commercial spaces within the campus generating activities and uses that serve the student, faculty and community needs.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Over a decade UPenn slowly and quietly purchased commercial properties to the west of the university in order to better control the university’s boundaries and enhance the surrounding environment.
Lambert Advisory, working with Madison Marquette, assisted the University of Pennsylvania to develop a retail master plan for the area contained within and immediately surrounding the University’s urban campus. The plan guided the University of Pennsylvania real estate department and administration towards a larger scale vision and program for commercial spaces within the campus aimed at broadening the mix of commercial tenants and generating activity centers that effectively respond to the student and faculty community needs. Through a distinctive set of financial and economic tools such as our retail trade model, we estimated future retail demand based on expenditure patterns and existing commercial space. A critical aspect of the analysis focused on developing the project in phases to effectively generate adequate economic clusters.
Today, the commercial zones surrounding the campus, which were previously off limits to students and staff, are vibrant commercial hubs with retail, hotel, and other development essential to the life of the university community.
