A 13,288-square-foot office building in Richmond sold for $4.9 million, One South Commercial announced Thursday.
Located at 4015 Fitzhugh Ave., the two-story building was built in 1954. The architecture firm 3North leases the building, which used to serve as the Boy Scouts of America headquarters.
VA Wood Properties LLC bought the property from 1501WW LLC. Tom Rosman and Ken Campbell from One South Commercial represented the seller.
McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. will return to U.S. offices in a hybrid model on Sept. 6, CEO Richard Fairbank announced Wednesday.
Capital One has delayed planned hybrid reopenings twice, from September 2021 to November 2021, and then indefinitely when the company announced its decision to postpone again in October 2021.
“As we get closer to September, we will closely monitor the health environment and the state of COVID-19 in our communities. If health conditions do not support a safe reopening, we will be ready to delay our planned reopening,” Fairbank said in his statement.
In Capital One’s initial hybrid work model, Mondays and Fridays will be virtual work days, although offices will be open with limited services for employees who want to work in the office. From Tuesdays through Thursdays, the offices will be fully open and employees are “strongly encouraged” to come into the office, but in-office attendance will not be mandatory on specific days or over specific periods, according to a news release. Fully remote workers will need senior executive approval.
“We expect teams will develop their own rhythms of office attendance and meetings suited to the type of work they do and the number of locations involved. While leaders may encourage alignment of attendance, they should not be prescriptive about when associates have to come into the office,” Fairbank said in a statement.
The company might adjust its hybrid model in the fall based on feedback from employees and customers.
Offices are currently open for employees who choose to work in-person and provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. The company plans on requiring regular testing for employees who do not provide proof of vaccination against COVID and will provide information on its testing policy “later this summer.”
Two properties in Richmond — an office building in Scott’s Addition and an apartment building in The Fan — have been sold, brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap announced Wednesday.
An 11,130-square-foot building in Scott’s Addition at 3412 W. Leigh St. has sold for $1.8 million, according to Marcus & Millichap. According to city property records, the sale closed on April 21 and was sold by 3410 W. Leigh LLC to 3410 W. Leigh St. LLC. The building is on a quarter-acre rectangular parcel. The seller redeveloped the second floor into an office space, and the first floor was sold as a cold shell, which means it is unfinished.
The property was sold by Kerry Riley, in Marcus & Millichap’s Richmond office.
The apartment property at 2327 Floyd Ave., in Richmond’s Fan District, has six apartments and sold for $1.175 million. Each unit sold for $196,000. The building has three stories, and the apartments have two bedrooms and one bathroom each.
Boatwright Investments LLC sold the property to WWS XXXI LLC, according to Richmond property records.
The transaction was handled by Theo Jolley, Altay Uzun, Justin Ferguson and David Chae of the Uzun Group and Marcus & Millichap’s Hampton Roads and Richmond offices.
CoStar Group Inc. has expanded its Richmond footprint with the $20 million purchase of the former SunTrust office building on the James River.
The five-story, 117,448-square-foot building at 901 Semmes Ave. will be occupied by at least 400 employees, however the company has not determined which teams will occupy the space yet, a CoStar Group spokesperson said.
CoStar Group is building a $460 million Riverfront campus in Richmond that will create 2,000 jobs and construction is projected to start late in the second quarter. The former SunTrust building will be “visually connected across the James River” to CoStar Group’s existing research, sales and technology center and the new 750,000-square-foot campus, the company said.
“CoStar Group is experiencing significant growth and this building will support our talented and expanding team of professionals who provide value to our customers every day,” CoStar founder and CEO Andrew Florance said in a statement. “This purchase further signifies our long-term commitment to growing in Richmond — a city and region with deep pools of talent and a community that encourages innovation. We are very excited about our continued expansion in Richmond, creating rewarding new jobs and deepening our community engagement and involvement.”
CoStar currently has about 1,200 employees in Richmond.
Chesterfield County-based commercial and industrial contractor Atlantic Constructors Inc.’s Roanoke team moved this month into a renovated building double the size of its previous office and shop/warehouse space.
The building at 1302 Rockland Ave. NW is 32,000 square feet. Property records show that ACI Suffolk LLC purchased the building for $1.95 million on Sept. 14, 2021. ACI also purchased 18 acres surrounding it to allow for future expansion.
“In 2013, we opened our Roanoke division, and in the years since, we have grown substantially and successfully executed on many projects throughout the surrounding area,” ACI President Terrence Kerner said in a statement. “With smart and strategic growth, and a strong pipeline of regional projects on the horizon, we felt it was time to invest in a larger and more functional space for the good of our ACI team and for the customers we serve.”
ACI’s Roanoke location now has 100 employees, up from three in 2013. The Roanoke team includes project managers, office personnel and tradespeople.
Along with its Roanoke and Chesterfield County locations, ACI has offices in Newport News, Sterling and Suffolk, and it has more than 1,000 employees. The company won the $20 million contract for mechanical and plumbing work on Radford University’s new Center for Adaptive Innovation and Creativity, as well as the $4.3 million plumbing, mechanical and electrical contract for Virginia Tech’s Hitt Hall.
Guidehouse’s leadership had in mind many of the perks that some employees now demand when the global management consulting firm began its search for a new headquarters in 2019.
Those included more flexible spaces, access to the outdoors, and technologies to support remote work and meetings. The firm also was growing. With a substantial workforce already located in Northern Virginia, Guidehouse — a management consultancy formed when Veritas Capital acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers’ public sector arm in 2018 — had also acquired Chicago-based Navigant Consulting.
Access to Guidehouse’s previous D.C.-based home near the White House was becoming untenable with street closures, says Chief Operating Officer Charles Beard. The company needed proximity to federal clients, but it also needed access to an airport to support its global growth. Access to health care was also key.
Washington Dulles International Airport and Inova Health System — for which Beard serves as a board member — were key drivers in Guidehouse’s decision to move its base to Fairfax County. Announced in May 2021, the move includes a $12.7 million investment spread over two floors, representing about 75,000 square feet, at 1676 International Drive in McLean.
Guidehouse originally forecast the move would bring more than 900 jobs for a total of 1,550 employees headquartered at the new Tysons-area location, but Beard says that number could increase. In October 2021, Guidehouse completed the acquisition of Dovel Technologies, which offers technical services, including data analytics and artificial intelligence, for health, life sciences and public safety clients.
Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Beard says Dovel’s acquisition adds about 2,000 employees, some of whom are located throughout the Washington, D.C., metro region and could relocate to the new headquarters. The added workforce gives Guidehouse technical services capabilities, including increased access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and “priority client” the National Institutes of Health. Guidehouse employs more than 10,000 people worldwide.
Not counting data centers, Guidehouse’s move represents one of the largest economic development deals in Northern Virginia for 2021, according to Virginia Economic Development Partnership data. VEDP assisted the county’s economic development authority in securing the project, and Guidehouse is eligible for benefits from the state’s Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit for bringing new, full-time jobs to the commonwealth.
Fairfax County Economic Development Authority President and CEO Victor Hoskins says smaller lease sizes like Guidehouse’s represent a growing trend that the county — and others — are taking note of. Previously, companies would lease about 250,000 to 300,000 square feet for about 1,500 employees. But now, “they’re leasing a lot less space for the same amount of jobs,” Hoskins says.
That seems to be part of Guidehouse’s original design, however. With employees no longer coming into the office five days a week, there was less need for dedicated offices and desks. There are only about 180 desks per floor, and those seats are doubled when counting other collaboration spaces, says Catherine Morrison, Guidehouse’s director of corporate real estate.
What employees did need was collaboration space, and the pandemic accelerated a move toward more adaptive, modular spaces, another area that Guidehouse had already been working on.
Executives describe the new headquarters as more like a branch, a place to support remote work with amenities to visit as needed, “like going to a Starbucks, but a private Starbucks,” Morrison says.
The new office space opened in January, though swing space in the building was available for employees prior to then. Though supply chain issues were a factor, Morrison says, Guidehouse worked closely with contractors, who anticipated delays, to order some materials early.
Hybrid work also can keep people off the region’s busy roads, which fits with the company’s sustainability goals, Beard says, adding he wants people to see the office as a “lifeboat.” He has also touted the headquarters’ proximity to nearby dining and child-care options.
“We’ve all gotten accustomed to meeting with one another virtually and we’ve watched young babies become young toddlers, and we know them by name as much as we know their parents by name,” Beard says. “We don’t want to lose that, so the office space will also be a place for gathering, for bringing our extended work families together on occasion.”
JLL is moving its Northern Virginia office from Vienna to 1800 Tysons Blvd. in McLean, the commercial real estate company announced Monday.
JLL will occupy nearly 24,000 square feet of the building, owned by Lerner Enterprises, with the move set during the first quarter of the year. Form Architects designed the office, which meets LEED and WELL requirements.
1800 Tysons Blvd. is a 12-story, 320,000-square-foot office tower a block from the Tysons Corner Metro station.
“The office is central to our work experience and culture, and we are excited to introduce a new, innovative, tech-forward space for our employees to collaborate, learn and most importantly, service our clients,” Chris Molivadas, mid-Atlantic market director for JLL, said in a statement. “In planning the new space, we infused ideas of home, warmth and fun, with the work needs requiring connectivity, efficiency and production to address the needs of our people to reconvene in the office.”
The following leases were completed between Dec. 14, 2021, and Jan. 10:
Lease transactions are published on the second Monday of each month. Send any commercial real estate transactions to Associate Editor Robyn Sidersky at [email protected] by the Friday prior.
Richmond’s 15-story Riverside on the James office tower has sold for $77 million, McLean-based American Real Estate Partners LLC (AREP) announced on April 6.
Located at 1001 Haxall Point, the 263,752-square-foot building was acquired from AREP by New York-based Opal Holdings and is 95.3% leased. The building’s main tenant is the Richmond office of Atlanta-based law firm Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP.
JLL Capital Markets’ Chris Lingerfelt, Ryan Clutter and Stephen Conley represented the seller.
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