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Tag: office building

CoStar makes deal to move into Arlington HQ in early 2025

CoStar Group is accelerating its headquarters move from Washington, D.C., to Arlington County, thanks to a deal with a tenant in the headquarters building that included a $48 million early termination fee.

The global real estate data and analytics company, best known for its Apartments.com and Homes.com marketplaces, announced plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to Arlington in February. CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance told Virginia Business in mid-October that some CoStar employees were already working in the building and CoStar planned to have “a significant percentage of [its] team in the Washington metropolitan area” moved there by May 2025. Now, CoStar plans to have the headquarters move finished in early 2025.

CoStar purchased the Central Place Tower at 1201 Wilson Blvd. for a reported $339 million in February, with plans to invest $20 million in the move. CoStar also secured sole use of the previously public 12,000-square-foot observation deck at the top of the building (formerly The View of DC), paying Arlington County $13.95 million, funding the county manager has proposed be put toward the planned redevelopment of a nearby 3-acre park.

The tenant releasing office space, Connecticut-based research and advisory firm Gartner, paid CoStar a $48 million early termination fee and ceded 11 floors of the 560,000-square-foot office tower. Gartner signed a new lease for about 49,000 square feet on the 11th and 12th floors through December 2032. The deal “unlocks sufficient space” for CoStar to relocate its headquarters, according to CoStar’s Nov. 1 news release.

“We’ve always intended for 1201 Wilson to become CoStar Group’s headquarters, but this agreement makes it possible for us to complete that process even faster and to better accommodate our continued rapid growth and expansion,” Florance said in a statement.

CoStar’s lease on its current headquarters — 1331 L St. NW in Washington, D.C. — is set to expire in 2025. The company bought the building for more than $41 million in 2010 and sold it in 2011 for $101 million, completing a sale-leaseback deal for a more than 140% return.

The real estate data and analytics firm has heavily invested in Virginia, with a $460.5 million expansion of its Richmond presence underway and expected to be completed in 2026. When complete, its Corporate Innovation Campus is set to have 1 million square feet of office space.

CoStar reported $2.46 billion in 2023 revenue. Founded in 1986, it has more than 6,400 employees.

8-story office building in Fairfax County sells for $9.5M

An eight-story office building in Fairfax County sold for $9.5 million on Dec. 19, 2023.

Located at 4035 Ridge Top Road, the Crown Ridge at Fair Oaks is a 194,699-square-foot Class A office building near the intersection of U.S. Route 50 and Interstate 66. The previous owner recently completed a $1.1 million upgrade, including a common amenity area for tenants that includes conference facilities, private meeting rooms and lounge areas with TVs, a gas fireplace, a shuffleboard table and a kitchen area, according to a Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer news release. Amenities also include an on-site café and a fitness center with showers, lockers and towel service.

WTHHWD bought the property from Crown Ridge HQ7. Brothers Jamie A. Scully in Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Fredericksburg office and David Scully from Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Tysons office handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the buyer.

Timmons tops off $50M HQ in Chesterfield County

Engineering and design firm Timmons Group topped off the last steel beam of its new, $50 million headquarters Friday at Chesterfield County’s Springline at District 60 mixed-use development.

The five-story, 150,000-square-foot building is part of the $210 million, 42-acre first phase of the county’s Springline at District 60 development, located on Midlothian Turnpike off Chippenham Parkway. Chesterfield County cleared the way for development in March by starting demolition on the former Best Products building in what was the Spring Rock Green shopping center.

“The topping off of the building marks an important milestone for the project,” Timmons President and CEO Brian Bortell said in a statement. “Hourigan [Group] is making extremely good progress with construction, and we are excited that very soon our employees will be in a new office building located in District 60.”

Construction on the Timmons office building started in August and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2024. The new headquarters is about a mile away from the company’s current office. The building will house about 400 Timmons employees and is fully leased. It will also house the administrative offices of the Chesterfield County Public Schools and the county’s Department of Economic Development.

“Having the Timmons Group’s office building at the Springline development keeps their corporate headquarters in Chesterfield and allows them to grow their talented workforce,” Mark Miller, the Midlothian District representative for the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “People are telling us they want high-quality places to live, work and play in Chesterfield, and Springline will deliver on that vision.”

Chesterfield previously marked a milestone in the Springline project with the groundbreaking of The James at Springline, an $80 million apartment building with ground-floor retail space, in late September.

The first phase of Springline at District 60 also will have a 150,000-square-foot office building, a sports entertainment and tournament venue, a specialty grocery store and a parking garage. The center of the site will be an open space that can host concerts, markets, festivals or other similar events.

The Chesterfield Economic Development Authority bought the land from Bond Cos. in 2021 for $16 million, and the county supervisors approved the development plan in April 2022. At the time of rezoning in 2022, the initial development cost estimate for the overall project was $675 million, according to a project spokesperson.

Remaining phases are still in planning stages. As of March, the county expected to have 1,200 residential units total, split between apartments and townhouses, and plans to add another office building, an extended-stay hotel, entertainment venues and a police station.

Norfolk warehouse sells for $1.3M

A 10,044-square-foot office and warehouse building in Norfolk sold Tuesday for $1.3 million.

The building, on 1.71 acres at 1301 Marsh St., was previously owned by Daughters Trust 3557. Piedmont Land Development bought the property, which is fully leased, as an investment. It is currently leased to Hepaco, an environmental cleanup company.

William C. Throne and Robert L. Phillips with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled sale negotiations on behalf of the buyer.

Henrico office building sells for $66M

Richmond-based Kinsale Insurance has sold a 291,000-square-foot Class A office building on Staples Mill Road in western Henrico County for $66 million.

The office, located at 2103 Staples Mill Road, was sold to Salus Federal Properties, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based limited liability company, commercial real estate firm Newmark announced. The building is 100% leased to Indianapolis-based Elevance Health, and the company will invest in a full-building renovation, said Will Bradley, Newmark’s executive managing director for capital markets.

The building was built in 2000 for Anthem, which changed its name to Elevance Health in 2022.

CFA Institute sells Charlottesville HQ for $21.9M

The Charlottesville headquarters of CFA Institute sold for $21.9 million, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced Tuesday.

The 150,000-square-foot office building, at 915 E. High St., is the former Martha Jefferson Hospital, which opened in 1904, according to Cvillepedia. CFA Institute, a nonprofit association of investment professionals, will lease back 47,000 square feet for its ongoing operations. The location has been the institute’s home since 2014, after a renovation that included sustainability features.

Thalhimer has been awarded the leasing by the buyer, Lo-Hi LLC, and the building will remain Class A office space. It is the only Class A building near downtown with parking. Lo-Hi will also be opening Lo-Hi Coworking, which will provide private executive office space for companies with up to 10 employees.

John Pritzlaff and Jenny Stoner of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled the sale and lease negotiations on behalf of the buyer and will handle the office space leasing going forward.

2,000 Amazon employees move into HQ2 during first week

About 2,000 employees moved into the first open tower at Amazon.com Inc.’s $2.5 billion HQ2 East Coast headquarters in Arlington this week.

Floors 1-14 of Merlin, one of Amazon’s two 22-story office towers in Metropolitan Park, the first phase of HQ2, opened Monday. The tech giant anticipates opening the remaining floors in phases, likely two floors at a time, with plans to have the 15th floor open before the end of June. The company has hired 8,000 employees locally so far.

“On the first day, in the afternoon, people were bringing their kids in and their partners, I think to show off [the building],” said Rachael Lighty, Amazon’s head of public relations for policy and HQ2.

Amazon expects to have roughly 1,000 to 2,000 more employees move in by teams each week. The lower floors of HQ2’s second building, dubbed Jasper, should be completed in the next 30 to 40 days, around the end of June, according to Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of economic development and public policy. By the end of September or early October, all HQ2 teams will be invited into the towers’ 2.1 million square feet.

Under its current office policy, Amazon is “encouraging” employees to come into the office at least three days a week, but vice presidents set office policies for their teams.

HQ2 will house a variety of teams, including devices, Amazon Web Services and corporate functions like finance, legal, public policy, communications and corporate facilities teams.

“It is truly a headquarters. We have that diversity of roles within HQ2,” Sullivan said.

Met Park’s two towers can house more than 14,500 employees. Despite beginning large-scale layoffs in November 2022, Amazon has remained firm on its commitment to create 25,000 jobs at HQ2 by 2030. The global e-tailer said in March that it was delaying HQ2’s second phase, PenPlace, but has been resolute that the delay is not a cancellation: “Our commitment remains unchanged,” Sullivan said.

Met Park will house 14 ground-floor retailers and also includes a 2.5-acre public park with walking paths, a children’s playground and a dog walk, as well as a dog park that will open once grass has firmly taken root.

Retail/office collection in Richmond sells for $6.3M

A combined 15,994 square feet of retail and office buildings in Richmond’s West End area sold for $6.3 million in late March, according to Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer.

The buildings are located at the corner of Grove and Granite avenues, at addresses 5701-5707 Grove Ave. and 124 Granite Ave. About half of the buildings are leased, and tenants include On U Jewelry, Scents of Serenity Organic Spa and Victoria Charles Jewelry, according to Reilly Marchant from Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, who represented the seller.

KLCN LLC purchased the portfolio from Muhleman Properties LLC. The sale closed on March 31, according to property records.

Newport News office building sells for $2.87M

A Newport News office building has sold for $2.875 million, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced in February.

Sashe LLC purchased the 24,526-square-foot office building at 11839 Rock Landing Drive in Oyster Point Park. Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer declined to disclose the seller.

The building is currently occupied by Engineering Development Laboratory Inc., an electronics manufacturing services firm that populates and tests printed circuit boards. The company has been in the building since 2002, when it was built, and will remain there for only a limited time following the sale, Steve Patterson, EDL’s managing director, told Virginia Business.

Teresa Nettles and Clay Culbreth, of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, handled negotiations on behalf of the seller.

Va. Beach office building sells for $15.5M

Charlottesville-based Seminole Trail Management LLC is the new owner of Pinehurst Centre, a 99,337-square-foot office building in Virginia Beach, Colliers announced Jan. 9.

Virginia Beach-based real estate developer Robinson Development Group sold the four-story, Class A office building to Seminole Trail for $15.5 million. The office is located at 477 Viking Drive in the Lynnhaven area. RDG acquired the building in June 2000.

Tenants include Financial Security Group, Progressive Casualty Insurance and Davenport & Co.

Colliers’ Will Bradley and Mark Williford represented the seller.