CIA pays Peterson Cos. $246M for Virginia office building

The CIA recently purchased a massive, 10-story office building in Chantilly for $246.4 million, according to Fairfax County tax records. However, the agency has yet to reveal its plans for the building.

Records indicate that DD North 2 — a limited liability company for family-owned Fairfax-based real estate developer Peterson Cos. — sold its Dulles Discovery 2 property, located at 13870 Air and Space Museum Parkway, to the federal government on May 29. The company’s website states that the property features a 434,000-square-foot Class A office building, constructed in 2010.

While the CIA isn’t specifically mentioned in the tax records, the mailing address for the new owner contains the Washington, D.C. zip code 20505, which is a code unique to the CIA.

The CIA did not immediately return requests for comment. Bill Smith, senior managing director for commercial with Peterson, said that the CIA had already been leasing Dulles Discovery 2 for office space, and that the building was originally built to serve the agency’s needs. He said the federal government leases the remainder of the Dulles Discovery buildings, but declined to provide additional details.

The property is part of the Dulles Discovery office campus, east of Route 28 and west of Route 657. It is near a Chick-fil-A, a Wawa and an urgent care. In addition to the building recently sold to the CIA, there are four other Dulles Discovery buildings that total more than 1.8 million square feet of space. The most recent building was built in 2024.

Founded in 1965 by the late Milton V. Peterson, Peterson Cos. has developed multiple major mixed-use projects in Northern Virginia and Maryland, including National Harbor in Maryland, home to the MGM National Harbor casino resort; the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center; The Capital Wheel; Fairfax Corner; Fair Lakes; Burke Centre; and Tysons McLean Office Park.