SoNo Brings West Coast Cool to Philadelphia

Rich Previdi, founder and managing partner of Alliance Partners HSP, took one look at the aerial view of the area around the soon-to-be empty Destination Maternity warehouse at 5th and Spring Garden, and saw "the hole in the donut:" a yawning gap between booming Northern Liberties and Old City. Thus SoNo was born, a sweet new creative office space modeled after the most cutting-edge campuses in the world. "We went to cities that had done this, visited the AirBnb campus, Twitter, and Pixar —we hired an architect out of Seattle. How do we take this," Previdi says he asked his team at the onset of the project, "and make it something special?"

In eighteen months, Alliance Partners HSP expect to deliver SoNo, a 260,000 square-foot horizontal creative office space with amenities aimed at attracting a "mix of large, medium, and small companies working in a creative and collaborative office community environment. Previdi says they cast a wide net to draw in companies across the nation and so far "three or four" tenants have expressed interest in the space.

The amenities offered at SoNo will be absolutely bonkers: a cafeteria that will offer healthy food choices to workers, 75 bike parking spots, onsite parking, exercise rooms, a rooftop amenity deck, which would include "club areas" for private meetings and events, and stadium seating for presentations and gathering. The goal is to create a destination rather than an office: a place to go to work, to think, to gather, to collaborate, and to create.

Previdi continues: "The idea is a win-win: for the community, investors, and neighbors. It's the goal to create a product that we need; there is no horizontal space like this in the city."

· SoNo [Official Website]
· Hip, Horizontal and Creative: Major Office Project to Replace Destination Maternity [Philly Mag]