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Tag: commercial real estate

Trump 2.0: Making real estate great again?

Let Trump be Trump.

A campaign staffer’s now-famous motto during President Donald Trump’s 2016 bid for president nods to the mercurial nature of the real estate mogul and former reality television star — as well as a similar slogan from “The West Wing.” And Trump himself has repeatedly said he trusts his gut over his advisers.

It’s a quality that may be the secret to the president’s success. It does, however, make it tricky to predict what direction the new Trump administration may take on policy decisions. And that’s especially true when considering what impact Trump’s second presidency could have on the real estate industry.

“We really don’t know what he’s going to do,” says Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors and the Central Virginia Regional Multiple Listing Service.

“I get this question from our 6,500 agents all the time about what I think is going to happen,” says Patrick Bain, president and CEO of Fairfax-based The Long & Foster Cos., one of the nation’s largest real estate and mortgage firms. “I can think of all sorts of things, but until we see some sort of bona fides coming out of the administration, there’s a lot of guessing going on.”

High rates, low inventory

For real estate professionals, the million- dollar question is, what will happen with the federal funds rate under Trump 2.0?

Both fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages are impacted when the Federal Reserve adjusts the federal funds rate, which is the short-term interest rate banks charge each other for loans to meet reserve requirements.

In December 2024, as part of its ongoing strategy to manage inflation, the Fed cut that key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points, to a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%.

Generally, that move would have been expected to result in a drop in mortgage rates, but instead, the 30-year mortgage average hit an eight-month high of 7.13% in January. In short, economists say that was likely due to messaging from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who said in December that the Fed would be cautious about making rate cuts in 2025 due to persistent inflation.

Experts say that despite rate cuts by the Fed, yields in the 10-year Treasury are high, and there are lingering concerns about inflation related to Trump’s threats of tariffs and geopolitical warfare.

This has added to an ongoing sluggish housing market, with sales and inventories still well below pre-pandemic levels, as homeowners who may have refinanced or purchased during the pandemic when 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dipped as low as 2.65% now are disincentivized to purchase homes with interest rates in the 6.8% to 7.1% range and sales prices climbing.

The Virginia market had 18,870 active listings at the end of November 2024, a 12% increase from November 2023, but still 34% down from 2019, when 28,615 homes were on the market.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would bring down interest rates and opined that the president should have a say in setting the federal funds rate. The problem, of course, is that the Federal Reserve is designed to operate independently of the White House.

“The Federal Reserve has made clear that they intend to act independently, and I think they’ll continue to act independently,” says Lafayette.

Trump “can get Powell to resign,” Bain says. “I’m sure he can compel him to put a new Fed chair in, but the problem is … interest rates right now are largely driven by federal spending, and if he’s going to ramp up spending without pretty significant budget cuts, I don’t see the Fed having a lot of power to influence the [10-year Treasury yield], which is what drives mortgage rates.”

Mortgage rates decreased following the Great Recession and stayed historically low, dropping to 2.1% for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages during the pandemic. To ward off fast-climbing inflation, the Fed hiked rates 11 times between 2022 and 2023, and 30-year mortgage rates rocketed to 8% for the first time in 23 years.

The mortgage rates “put a shock on so many people,” says J. Van Rose Jr., CEO and executive chairman of Chesapeake-based Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty.

As of the first quarter of 2024, about 76% of people with mortgages had a rate below 5%, according to an analysis by Redfin, a Seattle real estate company. And there were about 1.3 million fewer U.S. home sales from spring 2022 through the end of 2023, according to a paper from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

That said, interest rates don’t have to sink to 2.5% to spur activity in the market, according to Martin Johnson, interim CEO of Virginia Realtors, the state industry association. “It just needs to be lower,” he says.

It would take a 5% mortgage rate, Rose hypothesizes, to unfreeze the market. But Terry Clower, professor of public policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, doesn’t think that’s likely any time soon.

“I just don’t see a scenario in this coming year where we see — no matter what policies are implemented — much of a change in mortgage rates,” he says. “It’s possible that they fluctuate down a little bit, but they’re not going to go to 5%.”

Regulations and tariffs

In a November editorial published in The Wall Street Journal, billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, promised that the incoming administration will eliminate thousands of federal regulations. Residential and commercial real estate professionals like the sound of that.

“I think that if you ask the development community, they would tell you that there are some federal regulations that affect development that really don’t necessarily affect health, safety, welfare,” Lafayette says.

More regulations, Johnson points out, “leads to a higher cost of the end product that gets passed along to buyers.”

Rose points to sites in Hampton Roads that are currently off-limits to builders because they were deemed protected wetlands. “Well, two years ago, they weren’t wetlands,” he says. “Today, they’re wetlands. And I guarantee you, probably in a year and a half or so from now, they won’t be wet again, and it’s not by the climate, it’s by regulations.”
In 2020, Trump claimed to have cut nearly eight regulations for each new one enacted.

During his first term, Rose says, “we had some pretty good runs at it, because we didn’t have the same amount of hoops to jump through.”

While real estate leaders interviewed for this story are universally bullish about the prospects of Trump cutting red tape to benefit the industry, many had concerns about the potential impacts of Trump’s stated plans to impose additional tariffs on goods coming from Mexico, Canada and China.

Tariffs will drive up the cost of building materials, according to Brent Smith, the CoStar Group Endowed Chair in Real Estate Analytics at Virginia Commonwealth University. And “if materials get expensive, then it’s going to raise the cost of housing.”

R. Robert Benaicha, a partner at Richmond-based law firm Hirschler who represents national and local real estate developers, investors and lenders, is concerned that added tariffs “could create pretty massive inflationary pressures across the entire economy.” And that could lead to the Fed raising rates.

Michael Silver, chairman of Vestian, a Chicago-based corporate real estate services firm, takes a glass-half-full view, noting that additional tariffs could boost one segment of commercial real estate: warehouses. Tariffs, after all, could be reciprocated in a trade war and businesses that normally export products might have increased need for storing goods.

While tariffs could hurt the real estate industry, Trump may believe that that’s a price worth paying, points out David Bieri, associate professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech and a former adviser to the CEO of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. “Under the rubric of national self-sufficiency, you can justify tariffs extremely well,” he says.

Immigration crackdown

Trump also has pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, a move many experts say could also harm the real estate business.

The construction industry already has a labor shortage problem. A model created by national trade association Associated Builders and Contractors found that construction companies would need to hire more than 450,000 new workers in 2025 “on top of normal hiring” just to meet industry demand.

Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors and the Central Virginia Regional Multiple Listing Service Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown

The Baker Institute, a Texas-based nonpartisan think tank, estimates that the U.S. construction labor force is about 25% foreign-born. Determining how many construction workers are undocumented is difficult since many of those workers operate in the shadows. The American Immigration Council reported in September 2024 that undocumented immigrants represented about 23% of all construction workers in Texas in 2022.

In general, hiring undocumented workers has kept construction labor costs down, says Robert M. Diamond, senior counsel in the real estate group at Reed Smith, a global law firm with offices in Tysons. “You could get sufficient laborers, and it was hard for them to press for higher wages,” Diamond says.

If Trump follows through on his deportation plans, construction companies may be forced to limit the number of jobs they take, according to Timothy Faulkner, president and CEO of The Breeden Co., a Virginia Beach-based real estate development and management company. “Some of these trades may not be able to work on as many jobs, so that would slow down the pipeline as well as drive up costs.”

Political candidates often say one thing on the campaign trail, Rose notes, and govern another way. He points to the people Trump has selected to be part of his administration.

“Most of these people are very wealthy businessmen and women,” he says. “I’ll guarantee you, a big part of their portfolios in life are in real estate. … I think they’re pretty smart people. They didn’t become billionaires for no reason.”
Those individuals, he reasons, are not going to act against their own self-interests.

Draining the swamp

Additionally, on Inauguration Day, Trump ordered federal agencies to return workers to the office five days a week “as soon as practicable.”

Matthew Cypher, director of the Steers Center for Global Real Estate at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, celebrates this policy. “Making sure we have vibrancy in our downtown is important, and I’m hopeful that that is part of what he’s endeavoring to do,” he says.

J. Van Rose Jr., CEO and executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty Photo courtesy Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty

Following the pandemic, office space has been the softest part of the commercial real estate industry, according to Eric Robison, executive vice president of the Capital Markets Group for Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, a Glen Allen commercial real estate firm.

The Washington, D.C., office market closed out 2024 with a 19.9% vacancy rate, down from a high of 22.4% earlier in the year. Much of that was driven by the region’s largest tenant, the federal government, which accounted for “nearly half” of the district’s decline of 500,000 square feet in office space in the second quarter of 2024, according to CBRE. That was largely due to stalls in the Biden administration’s return-to-office initiatives.

“Getting federal workers and their contractors back into the office will help the performance of a number of office buildings, specifically in the Northern Virginia area, but also in the Hampton Roads market, [which] is deeply dependent on government contractors in the military,” Robison says.

Nevertheless, Smith foresees a number of federal workers handing in their notice over this mandate, especially those who may have relocated during the pandemic when they were allowed to work remotely.

The Trump administration has also pledged to cut the federal workforce, and move some offices out of the D.C. region.

Layoffs for federal workers could free up some Northern Virginia housing supply, adding thousands of properties to active listings, according to Bain, but it probably won’t happen in 2025.

“I think there’ll be some early wins with streamlining or making the government more efficient,” Bain says. “I don’t know that that’s going to be immediately felt in the [District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia].

There are many additional ways the Trump administration could impact commercial and residential real estate markets, too.

Northern Virginia Association of Realtors CEO Ryan McLaughlin is eager to see what Trump does with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which imposed a $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes. Eliminating that cap or raising it “could be beneficial for Northern Virginia,” he notes.

Other possible Trump administration moves could be as far-reaching as looking to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or reeling in Justice Department oversight of the real estate industry.

Then there’s the psychological impact for many voters, who feel optimistic about the new president’s potential impact on the economy. After all, confidence is key for would-be home shoppers.

“If they feel like their retirement portfolios are in good shape and continuing to go up, and they feel like that nest egg is growing,” says Johnson, “and they feel like they have — or are even going to have — more discretionary income, then they’re more apt to want to get involved and want to buy or sell and buy up.”

Virginia Business Associate Publisher & Editor Richard Foster contributed to this report.

Breeden regional director retires after 28 years

After nearly three decades at The Breeden Co., Debbie Gordon retired Friday, according to an announcement from the Virginia Beach real estate development and property management company.

Gordon, regional director of Breeden’s multifamily property management division, joined the company in 1997.

Under Gordon’s leadership, the company successfully reached the break-even occupancy rate for several Class A assets, the announcement noted.

“Her leadership has not only driven our success but has also inspired countless team members,” Bonnie Moore, Breeden’s president of property management, said in a statement.

Ramon W. Breeden Jr. founded the real estate development company in 1961. The company includes commercial real estate, multifamily property management and general contracting divisions. Its portfolio includes more than 20,000 apartments and 2 million square feet of retail and office space that it has owned, managed and developed.

Riverdale project moves forward in Roanoke

Work on the $50 million-plus Riverdale mixed-use redevelopment planned for more than 126 acres on the sprawling former campus of American Viscose, a rayon plant that closed in the late 1950s, is moving right along.

Developer Ed Walker shared a lengthy written update on the project Jan. 24 that included a rendering of a 267-unit apartment building planned for Riverdale that could begin construction late this year. That project is led by developers Joe Thompson and Tommy Spellman, according to Walker.

Rendering of brick building with large windows.
Rendering of an apartment building planned for Roanoke’s Riverdale development. Photo courtesy Ed Walker.

Other plans for Riverdale include a boutique hotel with a rooftop bar, a brewery, offices and recreation offerings.

Also in his missive, Walker noted Artspace, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that develops affordable housing for artists and creative spaces, won’t be building its first Virginia project at Riverdale after all.

During “the final stage of due diligence” on collaborating with Artspace in November and December, Walker wrote, “the Roanoke team decided to explore options other than Artspace to proceed to the next phase.”

Artspace did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Artspace executives requested local buy-in for the project to cover predevelopment costs: $150,000 by Nov. 1, 2024 and another $300,000 in January 2025. In October 2024, members of Roanoke’s Economic Development Authority unanimously voted to cover the $150,000 payment, using authority funds.

Duke Baldridge, a member of the city’s EDA, confirmed Friday that the funds had been returned.

“I think we explored this well-known national nonprofit developer, got real serious with them, and for whatever reason, it didn’t appear that it was going to get the return that we wanted,” Baldridge said. “Ed was very effective at getting our money returned to us.”

Walker hasn’t given up on having affordable housing for artists at Riverdale, however. “We will keep moving forward on this important community goal,” he wrote.  “2025 will be a year of tremendous progress to advance affordable housing for creatives.”

The earliest construction would likely begin on such a project would be 2026, he noted.

As part of his update, Walker also noted that some tenants who had occupied Riverdale under its previous owners had to be evicted. However, he added that more than 60 legacy tenants, including Willis Welding and Noke Vans, plan to stay.

Riverdale Southeast, the entity that owns the property, has filed to evict more than a dozen tenants, including Osmo Enterprises and Pena Trucking, since purchasing the campus in 2023, according to Roanoke City General District Court records. In his update about Riverdale’s progress, Walker said that step was taken in cases where tenants failed to pay rent, didn’t have a lease or were violating laws or fire regulations. “Sometimes you just have to ask a judge to help resolve a problem,” Walker wrote.

In other Riverdale news, during its Jan. 21 meeting, Roanoke City Council approved the rezoning of the Riverdale property under the city’s new “Urban Center” designation, which aims to create more pedestrian-friendly development.

Walker, a real estate developer known for developing apartments in historic buildings, forged a 2023 agreement with the city in which the EDA loaned Walker $10 million for Riverdale. If the project’s developers invest at least $50 million in the project through 2040, the loan will be forgiven.

Banks, credit unions revisit in-person banking strategies

A former Village Bank branch in Chesterfield County is now a Dunkin’ doughnuts and coffee shop, complete with a drive-thru. Roanoke’s former First National Bank building has found new life as a 54-room boutique hotel. In Hampton, the former Bank of Hampton Roads building is a doggy day care.

It’s true that bank customers do a lot of their business digitally these days, so there’s less need for branches and in-person banking. According to American Banker, the country’s top five banks closed 492 branches nationally between July 2023 and June 30, 2024, continuing a trend from the past several years.

Wells Fargo closed multiple branches in Virginia in 2023 and 2024 as part of a national shutdown of 85 branch offices, and Bank of America’s total number of branches in Virginia has declined from 130 a decade ago to 100 as of December 2024.

But that’s not the whole story.

Chartway Credit Union opened a new branch in Norfolk’s East Beach neighborhood in December 2024, responding to community growth. Photo courtesy Chartway Credit Union

For some banks and credit unions, it makes sense to maintain branch offices — or even open more. Bruce Whitehurst, president and CEO of the Virginia Bankers Association and the Mid-Atlantic Bankers Association, has been hearing “the branch is dead” since the 1990s.

Virginia was “on the front end of nationwide, interstate banking and branching, and also e-commerce, [with] the first couple of internet-only banks,” he says. “There were some who were saying, ‘The branch is dead. We’re not going to have branches in the future.’” And yet, even as the total number of branches has declined, “you have other banks that are very proactively increasing the branch footprint. It really boils down to each bank’s strategy.”

Sometimes financial institutions move or renovate branches, responding to changes in customer needs. Bank of America has invested $76 million over the past five years in relocating and renovating branches in the commonwealth.

“There’s a low, medium and high scope,” explains Nick Koumentakos, consumer banking regional executive for Bank of America. His territory includes Virginia, where all 100 branches have received renovations in the past three years. “Some of them we’ve completely … gutted the entire place and built it back out to have enclosed offices, to reposition where the service line is, to create more space for our clients.”

And in some cases, Bank of America has removed drive-thrus from its branches. “We were less able to help people effectively inside, and most people are handling the transactions that they could do through the drive-thrus digitally,” Koumentakos says. “We’ve scaled it down over the last few years.”

Different blueprints

Executives at Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank also have given the subject of branch locations a lot of thought, especially after its $507 million purchase of Danville-based American National Bank and Trust in April 2024 and the bank’s expected closing this year on Maryland’s Sandy Spring Bank.

As of December 2024, Atlantic Union has 129 branch locations across Virginia and North Carolina, and its pending $1.6 billion purchase of Sandy Spring will greatly expand Atlantic Union’s reach into Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland. That calls for different strategies.

After completing its buy of American National, Atlantic Union consolidated six American National branches and closed one of its own branches in Virginia and North Carolina because the two banks had overlapping offices in those localities, sometimes within sight of each other. But for Sandy Spring’s territory, the plan is to open three new branches, including one in Prince William County, and keep existing locations open, at least for now.

“American National Bank … had a backlog of branches that they had intended to close, and that’s mostly what we closed,” explains Shawn O’Brien, Atlantic Union’s consumer and business banking group executive. “But we try and take a pretty conservative approach when we acquire a bank because we don’t know their markets all that well. So, we don’t want to be in a position where we make a mistake, close a branch and then can’t serve a bunch of customers for one reason or another.”

Regarding Sandy Spring, O’Brien notes that Atlantic Union already has some branches in Northern Virginia, but no real presence in D.C. or Maryland, which make up the bulk of Sandy Spring’s territory. “To us, these are all new markets, and we’ll want to really learn the market. There’s different traffic patterns, there’s different customer types,” he says. “We’ll want to sit with that for a year at least to kind of understand what that looks like.”

Atlantic Union CEO John Asbury adds that there will be no branch-based Sandy Spring employees laid off after the acquisition closes by the third quarter of 2025.

“It’s very little overlap, and we can absorb them in the normal course through the broader network,” he says. “We’re super-excited, by the way, because we’re pretty thin in Northern Virginia, and they deliver a very good branch network in Northern Virginia, and then they’re expansive throughout Maryland. They’re kind of the Maryland version of us.”

In Atlantic Union’s home base of Richmond, the bank opened two branch offices in 2021, responding to market changes.

The bank’s Three Chopt Road branch in Richmond’s West End replaced a semi-hidden location on the back side of a nearby shopping center and now is a more prominent stand-alone structure. In the city’s hot Scott’s Addition neighborhood, Atlantic Union has a small branch amid the restaurants and breweries.

Matt Joyce, senior branch manager at the Three Chopt location, says there’s much more foot traffic at the new freestanding branch. Especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, customers appreciate its drive-thru capacity, which the old Three Chopt location lacked. Unlike older branches, the new one has fewer tellers and more individual offices for longer conversations, although they’re built with glass walls, creating a sense of openness.

Newer Atlantic Union branches are adapted toward modern banking needs, as more people use mobile apps or online banking to transfer funds, deposit checks or accomplish other financial tasks. When people come to the bank in person, they are more likely to have an appointment to discuss a loan or apply for a mortgage. Retail businesses that deposit cash daily or need coins also come to Joyce’s branch, he says.

“This is my opinion, but I don’t believe the branch is going to go away,” Joyce says. “The digital platforms are great until something goes wrong, or you need to build a relationship with somebody.”

And those conversations may start at the branch office and continue via Zoom, Microsoft Teams or phone, adds Joyce, who started his banking career 15 years ago. Also, there are still people — generally older customers — who come to the bank to cash and deposit personal checks, as well as workers at Joyce’s branch who field calls about potential fraud or phishing scams after customers receive suspicious emails or texts. And plenty of people stop by to have hot tea or coffee in the bank’s waiting area before doing their banking business.

“I think we’re also in a day and age where, even though things have become easier doing them online or digitally, people still miss the human interaction,” Joyce says.

League of Southeastern Credit Unions President Samantha Beeler says East Coast credit unions are still opening branches, often driven by customer demand. Photo by Will Schermerhorn

Credit unions’ priorities

Credit unions also have reasons behind opening new branches and keeping others open. Virginia Beach-headquartered Chartway Credit Union is one of the state’s largest credit unions, with more than 230,000 members in Texas, Utah and Virginia and $2.7 billion in total assets. In December 2024, Chartway opened a new branch office in Norfolk, and was set to open another location in Virginia Beach in January.

“We have data that suggests that about 50% of individuals want branches within 10 minutes of where they live,” says Chartway President and CEO Brian Schools. “So, we look at the geographic growth areas. We also look at our current membership. There are some consolidations, even within our growth. Sometimes we relocate a branch because maybe the traffic patterns have shifted.”

In certain parts of the commonwealth, property costs can enter into the equation of where to locate branches, especially in pricey Northern Virginia and Richmond neighborhoods.

However, Bank of America’s Koumentakos says land values are never his bank’s top priority when choosing whether to close, keep open or build a branch office. “It’s not done from the position of, ‘Hey, let’s make a quick dollar on the real estate.’ It’s, rather, what’s going to serve our clients and make sense for us.”

Property costs are one of several factors that Chartway takes into consideration with branch locations, Schools says, given that the credit union answers to its members. “We have to be very, very diligent,” he notes. “We look at the growth and the expected growth in those areas to ensure that the return [on investment] is there.”

In Norfolk’s East Beach community, Chartway’s new branch fulfills a need in “a very vibrant and growing area not far from the airport,” Schools explains. “It is about 15 minutes from our closest branch, and we felt there was an area that maybe we were not serving as adequately as we could.”

As a new branch, it functions a bit differently than an older one, he points out, with “some self-service capabilities,” but also offering staffers to assist as needed. The credit union also has introduced interactive teller machines, or ITMs, at some drive-thru branches. “Technology and branches aren’t mutually exclusive,” Schools says.

Chartway’s branch philosophy is pretty similar to other credit unions’, says Samantha Beeler, president of the League of Southeastern Credit Unions, which the Virginia Credit Union League joined in November 2024. West Coast credit unions sometimes close branches, but that trend has not taken off on the East Coast, she says.

“How we use our profits might mean instead of us giving a greater return to shareholders,” as commercial banks would do, “our motivation is to give [profits] back to the members,” Beeler says. “It might mean the members say, ‘Hey, we need new technology, or we need more access on XYZ corridor,’ and we’re finding a pretty big trend of abandoned bank branches that we can buy up.”

Self-service kiosks are popular with members, but so are ATMs and in-person conversations, Beeler says, requiring an expansive approach. “There’s still demand for all of it. We’re still adding branches.”

The Virginia Home plans $128M campus in Hanover

The Virginia Home plans to build a $128 million, 75-acre campus in Hanover County, according to a Thursday announcement by the nonprofit, which serves adults with irreversible physical disabilities. The current facility in Richmond will be sold, a spokesperson said.

At its location overlooking Richmond’s Byrd Park, The Virginia Home houses 130 residents who have conditions like quadriplegia and muscular dystrophy. The new campus will serve 160 residents, increasing capacity by more than 20%.

“Since 1894, we’ve had one dream at The Virginia Home — to create a richer life for adult Virginians with irreversible physical disabilities,” Douglas Vaughan Jr., president and CEO of the nonprofit, said in a news release. “Now, our dreams quite literally need a bigger home.”

Located off Interstate 295, the new campus will offer residents outdoor space and could accommodate future expansions, which might include multi-person cottages for residents who are able to live more independently, according to The Virginia Home.

In a news release Friday, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer said The Virginia Home purchased 75 acres on Bell Creek Road near Pole Green Road for $8.65 million from Big Oak Development Co. Shield Land Trust. Jeffrey Cooke handled the sale negotiations on behalf of The Virginia Home.

The new, one-story facility will be 196,000 square feet, an increase over the current 125,000-square-foot building. With construction expected to begin in July, the new facility could open to residents in the fall of 2027, according to a spokesperson for The Virginia Home.

All rooms at the new facility will feature outdoor views and natural light. They will be larger than rooms at the current facility (an increase from 164 square feet to 250 square feet). The facility will also offer smaller bathroom configurations with more individual storage, a change from the current congregate facilities. Residents will not need to navigate elevators or stairs.

“The new campus will not only allow us to welcome more individuals and families into our community, but it will also feature beautiful, modern design and technology that supports greater independence, dignity and comfort for everyone we serve,” Vaughan said in a statement.

Additionally, the new campus will allow The Virginia Home to launch a day program that will serve 55 to 60 participants, individuals who are on a waiting list for a residential opening or who do not require full-time care.

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer names new Va. Beach leader

Geoff Poston is taking over leadership of the Virginia Beach office of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, according to a Wednesday announcement by the Glen Allen-headquartered real estate firm.

As managing broker, Poston replaces Chris Rouzie, who has led Thalhimer’s overall Hampton Roads operation since 2014. Rouzie, an executive vice president at the firm, will remain on the company’s board and executive leadership team, while also serving as managing broker of the company’s Newport News office.

A man with a beard wearing a dark suit and purple tie.
Chris Rouzie is an executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. Photo courtesy Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer

Rouzie, who graduated from the University of Richmond with a degree in business management administration, specializes in retail site selection and leasing for Hampton Roads’ retailers and developers.

“Chris Rouzie took Thalhimer to new heights in Hampton Roads,” Lee Warfield, president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, said in a statement. “He will continue to lead the way as a top producer and valued member of our senior leadership team.”

Poston joined Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer in 2010 and leads the company’s Hampton Roads Industrial Group. During his tenure, Poston transitioned the industrial team to serve more institutional clients as well as clients occupying port-related properties.

Poston, who has a bachelor’s in history from Old Dominion University, is a 2020 graduate of LEAD Hampton Roads and president of the Virginia chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors.

“Geoff is a proven producer who has made a substantial impact on the Hampton Roads real estate market,” Rouzie said in a statement.

Founded in 1913, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer has offices across the state and has nearly 100 broker professionals and more than 450 associates. In 2023, Thalhimer completed over 1,800 transactions with a transactional volume of more than $1.7 billion.

New York investment firm purchases Short Pump Station for $54.96M

Nuveen Real Estate, a New York investment management firm, purchased Short Pump Station in western Henrico County from Wafra, an alternative investment managing firm also based in New York, for $54.96 million on Dec. 30, 2024, according to a Tuesday announcement by Wafra and Henrico County records.

Grocery retailer Trader Joe’s is the anchor tenant of the 91,369-square-foot shopping center at 11301 W. Broad St. in Glen Allen, which also includes Ulta and Petco stores. Short Pump Station attracts 2.3 million visits a year, according to Wafra.

“Short Pump Station aligns perfectly with our grocery-anchored neighborhood retail strategy, in the growing and dynamic Short Pump submarket.” Ryan Boan, U.S. head of retail transactions at Nuveen Real Estate, said in a statement.

Wafra purchased Short Pump Station in 2021 from a joint venture between BayNorth Capital, a Boston-based real estate private equity firm, and AmCap, a Connecticut real estate firm that invests in grocery-anchored retail properties, for $46.7 million. The property was built in 2008.

“The Short Pump investment resulted in an excellent outcome for our investors,” David Hamm, head of real estate at Wafra, stated in a news release.

John Owendoff of Cushman & Wakefield and Catharine Spangler of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer advised Wafra on the sale.

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer will continue leasing and managing Short Pump Station. 

Herndon office building portfolio sells for $51M

A portfolio of four office buildings in Herndon sold for $51 million, Finmarc Management announced Thursday.

Dubbed Dulles Corner, the four buildings comprise nearly 620,000 square feet of Class A office space. Located at the intersection of Dulles Toll Road and Virginia Route 28, the properties are:

  • 2411 Dulles Corner Park, an eight-story, nearly 180,000-square-foot office building built in 1990 and renovated in 2022,
  • 13880 Dulles Corner Lane, a four-story, more than 150,000-square-foot office building completed in 1997, with improvements made in 2022,
  • 2355 Dulles Corner Blvd., an eight-story, more than 180,000-square-foot office building constructed in 1988 and renovated in 2022,
  • 13825 Sunrise Valley Drive, a two-story, roughly 105,000-square-foot office building completed in 1989, with improvements made in 2005.

The portfolio has more than 2,100 parking spaces, as well as conference facilities, a private fitness center, on-site restaurants, a day care and a park feature with walking paths, water features and outdoor eating areas.

Current tenants include Reston federal contractor Peraton, cloud technology company SAP National Security Services (SAP NS2), tech company DLT Solutions, defense contractor Mission Essential, federal contractor Valiant Integrated Services, tech company Synopsys and BlackSky Technology. Finmarc has space available to lease in the portfolio, and Cushman & Wakefield is overseeing leasing.

Bethesda, Maryland-based commercial real estate company Finmarc Management bought the properties from Brandywine Realty Trust. Eastdil Secured represented the seller. Aaron Rosenfeld with Kelley Drye & Warren provided legal services to Finmarc, and Cliff Mendelson with Metropolis Capital Advisors assisted in debt placement.

The Dulles Corner acquisition brings Finmarc’s 2024 transactional volume to about $210 million across almost 1.7 million square feet of office space, industrial real estate, data center land and retail space.

“We intend to remain aggressive in our pursuit of emerging institutional-quality, under-performing and value-add assets in the coming year,” Finmarc Principal Neil Markus said in a statement, adding that the mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Southeast regions are the company’s primary investment focus.

Finmarc previously acquired a four-building portfolio in Centreville in August 2024 for $39.36 million. Called Trinity Centre, the portfolio has almost 500,000 square feet of Class A commercial office space and is home to Carfax’s headquarters.

“Our recent acquisition of Trinity Centre, together with significant commercial real estate holdings in the Northern Virginia and greater Washington, D.C., market, validates our optimism about the long-term prospects of the region,” Markus said in a statement.

Virginia 500 Spotlight: CHRISTOPHER MOLIVADAS

What I like to do for fun: Time with family. My family is my biggest accomplishment.

What I was like in high school: I was very well-rounded and involved in everything.

What made me choose this career path? I am a very visual person and easily understand how things come together to create something. The built environment was an easy choice.

My advice for new college graduates: You can learn and think your way through any situation. I am a strong believer in continuous learning and for people to take the time to think.

Do I leave work at work when I finish the workday? I only leave work when I am spending time with my family. Otherwise, work is my hobby and my career. I am continuously reading to stay at the top of my game. Reading drives new ideas to solve work challenges.

Did you know? Two of Molivadas’ three teenage sons are passionate about riding all-terrain vehicles. He and his boys take their ATVs to North Carolina to ride many times a year.

Thalhimer subsidiary purchases Dabney Center for $75M

Thalhimer Realty Partners, a Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer subsidiary, has purchased Dabney Center, a 56-acre industrial park in Henrico County, for $75.3 million, the company announced Monday.

The complex, which includes 14 buildings and encompasses more than 642,000 square feet, was purchased from Brandywine Realty Trust of Philadelphia. Atlantic Union Bank provided financing for the acquisition. Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer will lease and manage the property.

“This is the center of everything that’s Richmond,” said Evan Magrill, an executive vice president with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. “It’s where interstate[s] 64 and 95 cross. It’s where our Downtown Expressway … starts. … It really is the central point of all of Richmond.”

Zoned for light and general industrial use, Dabney Center is 99% leased. One 3,350-square-foot space remains available for lease at the center. The industrial park’s 40 tenants, which include Fireside Hearth and Home, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Ferguson HVAC Supply, have a variety of facilities there such as a building supply showroom, a distribution center and a bioanalytical lab.

 Thalhimer Realty Partners, which has its headquarters in Richmond, has a portfolio of commercial and multifamily assets throughout the Southeastern U.S. valued at more than $1 billion. It is also the sole principal developing Richmond’s $2.44 billion Diamond District, a mixed-use project being developed around CarMax Park, a new baseball stadium under construction for the Richmond Flying Squirrels.