Camp Hill center goes for nearly $90M

The Camp Hill Shopping Center -- home to a Giant supermarket, Boscov's department store, Barnes & Noble bookstore and other retailers -- has been sold for roughly $89.7 million.

That's according to the seller, Cedar Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust based in Port Washington, New York.
Cedar Realty did not disclose the buyer in its press release, and efforts to reach company executives were not successful yesterday afternoon.
But the buyer appears to have made an unsolicited offer for the 423,671-square-foot shopping center at Trindle Road and South 32nd Street, according to recent remarks by Cedar Trust CEO Bruce Schanzer.

What remarks: Schanzer disclosed the offer in a May conference call with stock analysts, according to a transcript.

While some investors take a dim view of retail real estate in general, others recognize what Schanzer described as "the extraordinary resilience" of retail real estate anchored by grocery stores, which have seen sales boom despite -- or because of -- Covid-19.
"It is this backdrop that informed our willingness to place the Camp Hill Shopping Center under contract after receiving an unsolicited purchase offer," Schanzer said.
The Camp Hill center's $89.7 million price tag reflects a cap rate of roughly 6.5%, a measure of the property's rate of return.

The background: Cedar Realty has owned the Camp Hill Shopping Center since 2002, according to regulatory filings, The property is 97% occupied.

Cedar Realty also owns Colonial Commons and The Point, around Harrisburg; Fairview Commons in New Cumberland; Golden Triangle on Lititz Pike in Lancaster County; Halifax Plaza in northern Dauphin County; Meadows Marketplace in Hummelstown; the Palmyra Shopping Center and Northside Commons in Lebanon County; and Newport Plaza in Perry County.
The company owns 53 properties overall, stretching from Washington, D.C., to Boston.
Earlier this year the company sold The Commons, a shopping center in Clearfield County, for $9.8 million, according to an earnings release.

Quick takes

WHAT'S GETTING NEW LIFE: A food-packaging plant at 26 Industrial Drive in Penn Township, York County, near Hanover. The 62,640-square-foot plant was shuttered last fall by its then-owner, Curation Foods, a subsidiary of California-based Landec Corp. But it was subsequently purchased for $8 million by another company, Pero Family Farms Food Co., based in Delray Beach, Florida, according to county property records.

Pero Family Farms hopes to add a 30,000-square-foot cold-storage facility at the site, according to Gerry Funke, a vice president at Hanover-based GHI Engineers and Surveyors, which is shepherding plans through the local approval process.
Pero Family Farms, which specializes in packaged, fresh-cut vegetables, also hopes to add a second shift to the facility, according to minutes of the Penn Township planning commission. Efforts to reach Pero Family Farms were not successful.

The background: Curation decided to close the facility because it was under-utilized. At the time, it employed 133 people in packaging salads and vegetables.

WHAT'S UNDER PRESSURE: Lancaster farmland. That's the gist of a recent report by the Lancaster Farmland Trust, a nonprofit that seeks to preserve the county's agricultural land, which is among the most productive in the U.S. The report notes that government funding for farmland preservation has dwindled even as Lancaster's population has exploded. The county is now losing about 1,200 acres of farmland per year.

The immediate challenge is a backlog of 250 farmers who want to preserve their farms but require funding to make it work.
The longer-term challenge is growing pressure from development, according to the trust report, which advocated greater government spending for preservation.

How much has been spent so far: $244 million since 1985, with most of the money coming from the state and county, according to the report.

Annual spending at peaked at nearly $20.8 million in 2001. It has slowly fallen over the last 20 years to around $5 million per year.

WHO'S HIRING: Post & Schell. The regional law firm has hired two attorneys who previously were partners at Lancaster-based Brubaker Connaughton Goss & Lucarelli. The two attorneys -- Theresa A. Mongiovi and Angela H. Sanders -- are joining the employment and labor practice group at Post & Schell and will work out of the firm's Lancaster office.

Mongiovi had been chair of Brubaker Connaughton's employment and labor department, according to a press release.

WHO'S CUTTING JOBS: WSP, a Montreal-based consulting and engineering firm. The company is laying off 66 people from its Ephrata-area office, principally in financial roles such as accounting and billing. The cuts are scheduled to take place in August and October this year, according to a WARN notice WSP filed with the state. The office at 4139 Oregon Pike in West Earl Township employs roughly 200 people, according to WSP spokesperson Corey Dade.

The layoffs stem from a corporate decision to restructure some operations, Dade wrote in an emailed statement.
But WSP has been working to find new jobs for affected employees, he added. "Due to our efforts at successfully placing impacted employees in new positions within the company, we may fall short of having to file in compliance with the WARN Act once we have completed our restructuring."
The WARN Act requires notification of layoffs involving 50 or more employees.

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Compiled and written by Joel Berg