Defense contractor buying Elkridge distribution center 

Posted: 7:13 pm Tue, November 17, 2009
By Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer

Virginia-based defense contractor Intelligent Decisions Inc. has paid $4.4 million for Crossroads Distribution Center in Elkridge, a large industrial property space in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

Seller Washington Real Estate Investment Trust said in a statement that it had gained $1.6 million on the sale in addition to an 11.3 percent rate of return on the property over the 14 years that it owned it.

Intelligent Decisions will occupy 23,000 square feet of the 85,000-square-foot property, which is located at 6610 Amberton Drive. The company specializes in providing information technology and security services to defense and intelligence-related clients.

The sale comes in a market, the Baltimore-Washington corridor, that is expected to receive an influx of 5,700 jobs at Fort Meade as a direct result of the federal Base Realignment and Closure initiative, or BRAC.

Many of these jobs will come as result of the September 2010 relocation of the Defense Information Systems Agency, which provides cybersecurity services for the Department of Defense, to Maryland from Virginia.

Another 4,000 jobs could come with an expansion of the National Security Agency, located at Fort Meade, and thousands more jobs are expected to come as defense contractors related to government agencies follow their federal meal tickets to Maryland.

Jonathan M. Carpenter, a Colliers Pinkard broker who represented the seller in the Crossroads transaction, said that with the beginning of the federal fiscal year on Oct.1, contracts are being renewed and more transaction activity is stirring.

“Most of the activity is contractors leasing buildings, rather than sales,” he said, adding that the $52 per square foot sale price of the Crossroads property is “in line” with recent deals in the corridor, and indicates that well-located industrial properties are retaining their values.

“I think this is an example of a defense contractor and government contractor that is gearing up for increased activity due to BRAC, whether it’s the expansion of NSA or DISA moving up,” Carpenter said.