WRIT Buys DC Medical Office for $50M

WASHINGTON, DC-Washington Real Estate Investment Trust has acquired a class A medical office building at 2440 M St. for $50 million. The sellers, Perseus Realty LLC and Westbrook Partners, acquired the property in October 2005 in an opportunistic play and have since increased occupancy by some 14%.

The eight-story, 112,000-sf medical office building, which was built in 1986, is now 96% leased to 49 tenants. Perseus Realty Capital represented the sellers.

Tom Howland, managing director of Perseus, tells GlobeSt.com that the building was mismanaged and undervalued when it was acquired with occupancy at 82%–an aberration in the tightly occupied West End. The building, located a short distance from the area’s major hospitals, including George Washington Hospital, Georgetown University Hospital and Sibley Hospital, is ideal for a medical office building. “The buyers saw this as an opportunity to lease up what could be a very attractive building after minimal upgrades,” Howland says.