The sale of more than 20 acres of land in Hanover, Md., last month opened the door for the construction of a large mixed-use development across from Arundel Mills mall.
Linden Associates now will move forward with plans to build two 150,000-square-foot office buildings, a limited-service hotel, ground-floor retail and a day care center.
Terms of the sale of the land were not disclosed. The project will be called Arundel Mills Corporate Park.
“It’s more than just office buildings. We’re really trying to create an environment,” said Chuck Breitenother, first vice president of CB Richard Ellis, which brokered the sale and will handle office leasing.
Groundbreaking on the site is scheduled for February; completion of the first building is expected in early 2005.
At this early stage, no tenants have signed on to lease space at the new corporate park. Though real estate analysts consider the Baltimore-area corridor to be among the strongest office markets in the country, office vacancies there rose slightly in 2003.
Mr. Breitenother said he will have no trouble attracting tenants, citing the park’s proximity to Arundel Mills and Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Plus, he said, the nearby headquarters of the National Security Agency will help attract stable, government-oriented tenants.
In addition, tenants may be drawn to the new buildings because they will be built according to environment-friendly standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Program. If certified, the buildings will be the first “green” buildings with more than one tenant in Anne Arundel County.
Bowen goes up
Sigal Construction Corp. is more than halfway through one of the more challenging real estate projects the District has seen in years.
The company has begun work on a 10-story office building that will rise behind the facade of the historic Bowen Building at 815 15th St. NW. The work comes after a painstaking process of demolishing the Bowen Building piece by piece while keeping the facade in place.
Sigal had to build a network of steel girders to support the building facade, which managed to stay intact even through the winds of Tropical Storm Isabel. The company took apart 10,000 square feet of tile, which it will store and eventually reassemble onto the new building.
In other news …
• First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. paid $25.5 million for Southgate at Washington Business Park, a 442,000-square-foot, seven-building flex/warehouse business park in Lanham. First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. bought the buildings from Southgate at Washington Park Inc. Transwestern Commercial Services helped broker the sale.
• The I-97 Business Park, a 44-acre site with approximately 360,000 square feet of flex and office space, contributes more than $150 million to Anne Arundel County, according to an economic study by Optimal Solutions Group and the Regional Economic Studies Institute of Towson University. The study was commissioned by MIE Properties, which owns the I-97 Business Park and manages more than 10 million square feet of space in the Baltimore area.
OUT OF UPTOWN
Office vacancies in Uptown have climbed in each of the last three years. Many businesses are moving to more central locations in the city.
YearVacancy Rate
20002.1 percent
20013.3
20024.1
20035.1
Source: Delta Associates.
• Property Lines runs Fridays. Tim Lemke can be reached at tlemke@washingtontimes.com or 202/636-4836.
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