Joint partners Liberty Property Trust of Malvern and Synterra Partners recently announced a tasty deal as they broke ground on a 100 percent pre-leased building at The Philadelphia Navy Yard which will house three international tenants.

The 75,000-square-foot building at 4000 S. 26th St. will complete the development of the 40-acre Navy Yard Commerce Center on the western side of The Navy Yard. At full build-out the 525,000-square-foot property, anchored by Tasty Baking Company, will be fully leased.

Tenants will be WuXi AppTec, Inc., a global pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and medical device outsourcing company with offices in China and the U.S.; Australian energy management firm EcoSave; and UK global pharmaceutical firm Clinigen.

Wu Xi AppTec, Inc. will expand into approximately 45,000 square feet of the building, bringing its total space with Liberty/Synterra in The Navy Yard to 130,000 square feet. The company was Liberty’s first Navy Yard tenant in in 2003. EcoSave, which helps companies reduce energy and water consumption through building upgrades, will occupy 20,000 square feet. Clinigen will use 20,000 square feet of the building for its U.S. headquarters.

“This exciting news is yet another expression of economic confidence in our great city, which is increasingly grabbing national and international attention,” said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. “I’ve had the opportunity to travel to places like London, Israel, China and Italy to promote our city as a world-class destination for business, and I can say with a great deal of confidence that selling Philadelphia is no longer a tough job. People want to work and live here. The City of Philadelphia – and especially The Navy Yard – is attracting investment, developers, and businesses which continue to add new options to our already vibrant and diverse city.”

The Navy Yard is a 1,200 acre, dynamic urban waterfront business campus. It’s home to more than 11,000 employees and 143 companies in the office, industrial/manufacturing, and research and development sectors, occupying 6.5 million square feet of real estate in a mix of historic buildings and new high-performance and LEED certified construction.

Both Liberty Property Trust and Synterra Partners are commercial real estate development companies.

Links: www.navyyard.org, www.libertyproperty.com and www.synterraltd.com