PREIT Signs Up AT&T for Revamped 15th and Walnut Corner

A rendering of the renovations at 1501 Walnut Street. The corner will contain an AT&T Store. (Photo: PREIT)

Perhaps we can start calling the intersection of 15th and Walnut “Cell Phone Alley.”

A T-Mobile store already sits next to Butcher & Singer just down Walnut from 15th. The building containing a new Cheesecake Factory at 15th and Walnut has a Verizon Innovation store going in. And, today, PREIT announced it had signed AT&T Mobility for the 1501 Walnut Street location. That’s three cell phone stores at one intersection, pretty much. All that’s missing of the major carriers is Sprint!

1501 Walnut Street was previously the Walnut Mini Mart, a tiny convenience store.

The mini-mart and several other stores — a dry cleaner, a shoe shine store, a coffee shop — once lined 15th Street. Those spaces, among others, are being turned into a 5,000-square foot AT&T store; the building also has 18,000 square feet of office space, a Club Monaco and a Cameo Water Wear. The AT&T store is expected to open in November.

“This transaction creates significant value and is the first step in the redevelopment of an asset that represented a unique opportunity in a prime location in a growing Philadelphia retail market,” PREIT CEO Joseph Coradino said in a statement. “This opportunity is representative of PREIT’s dominance in and significant knowledge of the retail landscape in Philadelphia.”

PREIT bought 1501 Walnut in 2014. It is 27,000 square feet total.