This accelerated demand is in part due to the federal government's finalizing their fiscal year 2017 budget in early May, and also due to the continued expectation for mid-single digit defense spending growth for the foreseeable future, Budorick continued. He noted that in the first nine months, the REIT completed 2 million square feet of leasing, one third of which related to new demand, including 482,000 square feet of development leasing.

The REIT posted strong quarterly growth, he also said, with FFO per share of $0.53 being at the high end of guidance. Same office cash NOI increased 5.2% in the third quarter.

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COLUMBIA, MD–Corporate Office Properties Trust completed 185,000 square feet in development leasing thus far in the fourth quarter, according to its Q3 earnings report — 170,000 square feet of which it announced with the report's release.

Included in that announcement was a 149,000-square foot long-term lease that a subsidiary of an investment-grade Fortune 500 company signed for a building on land that COPT owns in Northern Virginia. The building is expected to deliver in the third quarter of 2018. The other development lease is in the REIT's Redstone Gateway development in Huntsville, AL. COPT secured a lease for approximately 60%, or 21,000 square feet, of a 36,000-square foot single-story office building to be developed there.

COPT's year-to-date development leasing now stands at 667,000 square feet and is on-track to exceed its annual development leasing goal of 700,000 square feet by at least 100,000 square feet, according to CEO and President Stephen E. Budorick.

“Bolstering our confidence is the fact that our shadow development pipeline has significantly increased in the past 90 days, and now stands at 2 to 3 million square feet of low-risk, largely build-to-suit opportunities,” he said in a prepared statement.

This accelerated demand is in part due to the federal government's finalizing their fiscal year 2017 budget in early May, and also due to the continued expectation for mid-single digit defense spending growth for the foreseeable future, Budorick continued. He noted that in the first nine months, the REIT completed 2 million square feet of leasing, one third of which related to new demand, including 482,000 square feet of development leasing.

The REIT posted strong quarterly growth, he also said, with FFO per share of $0.53 being at the high end of guidance. Same office cash NOI increased 5.2% in the third quarter.

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