The Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD)

The first architecture charter high school in the nation, a collaboration of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and a group of creative educators, serving 600 students from grades 9 to 12.

• CHAD resided in a constricting sublease space of 26,000 SF within an office building.
• CHAD and its foundation, Design Futures, engaged Steve Gendler to find a property and finance the acquisition and development of their new facility.
• After many properties were considered, CHAD acquired Liberty Square, a five-story, 125,000 square foot building located at the corner of Seventh and Sansom Streets in Center City Philadelphia for $10.3 Million.
• Gendler arranged financing through a complex transaction that included four loans from three sources totaling $9.2 million, with extraordinarily low equity contribution, less than 10%, by the buyer.
• CHAD was able to more than double in size and funnel significant real estate investment income into the school.

* Real estate transaction completed by Steve Gendler at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank