FMC to move headquarters

FMC Corp. will leave Center City and relocate its headquarters to Cira Centre South, Pennsylvania, a new $341 million mixed-use development in University City.

The building — to be called FMC Tower at Cira Centre South — sits in a Keystone Opportunity Zone and gives FMC certain tax breaks on state and local taxes. Which breaks it will receive, if any, couldn't immediately be determined.

Cira Centre, the first office building constructed by Brandywine at the Cira complex in University City, was filled with law firms and investment companies that vacated space in Center City office buildings and moved into what is essentially a bit of a tax haven next to 30th Street Station. Jerry Sweeney, president and CEO of Brandywine, indicated the original Cira Centre houses about 2000 employees, of which 50 percent were new to the city and almost 800 new to the state. Apparently, this isn't the case for Cira South.

The chemical company will relocate out of Mellon Bank Center. FMC (NYSE: FMC) signed a 16-year, 253,000-square-foot lease. Brandywine (NYSE: BDN) plans to break ground next year and FMC will begin to occupy its new headquarters beginning in June 2016. Tactix Real Estate Advisors represented the company in the transaction.

The University of Pennsylvania also signed a 20-year lease for 100,000 square feet of the building. With the FMC lease, the office portion of the building is 61 percent leased.

FMC Tower at Cira Centre South will stand 47-stories and be the sixth tallest office building in Philadelphia, according to Brandywine. It will have 830,000 square feet of which 575,000 square feet is office space, 10,000 square feet of retail, and the remainder in a 260-unit apartment complex.