GAITHERSBURG, MD—Boston-based Tritower Financial has acquired three office/labs in Maryland's life science corridor for $29.4 million. The buildings, which total 139,938 square feet and are 95% occupied, are 25, 35 and 45 West Watkins Mill Rd. The seller was Equus Capital, represented by HFF.
HFF also secured financing for Tritower to buy the properties. A life insurance company provided a 10-year, fixed-rate acquisition loan.
Tritower took one look at these assets are decided to bid on them, HFF's Matt Nicholson tells GlobeSt.com. "These three assets have consistently outperformed the market. They have good, long-term leases with strong credits," he said.
In short, this was not a suburban Maryland office play -- and indeed, the saturated suburban office market here is struggling with a high vacancy rate and low investor interest. Rather, according to Nicholson, Tritower liked the credit profile of the buildings and their cash flow.
It is difficult to say how the assets stack up against other bio-tech properties in terms of value, Nicholson adds, as these deals tend to be one-off and hard to compare. "I can tell you that other landlords that looked at the opportunity and had experience in this space said that there is not a lot of new life science supply and this particular segment is tightening."
Tritower is actively pursuing other purchases in the area, according to Nicolson.
In fact, this is the second acquisition Tritower has made in the area recently. In Q2 of this year, it purchased 15040 Conference Center Dr., for $27.5 million or $237 per square foot -- the only investment sale in the Chantilly submarket last quarter, according to Transwestern.
25, 35 and 45 West Watkins Mill Rd. are located along Montgomery County's I-270 corridor. They are also within walking distance of the new Watkins Mill Town Center.
Tenants at the triple net leased properties include MedImmune and Amplimmune, wholly owned subsidiaries of AstraZeneca.
Besides Nicholson, the HFF investment sales team included Jim Meisel, Dek Potts, Andrew Weir and Stephen Conley.
Cary Abod led the debt placement team.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
