Real Estate Weekly: First Potomac Realty adds to portfolio

Posted: 10:08 am Fri, February 25, 2011
By Paul Samuel
Daily Record Associate Editor

First Potomac Realty Trust of Bethesda said it spent $33.8 million to acquire two office buildings in Virginia and one in Maryland.

The real estate investment trust paid $22.8 million for Cedar Hill I & III in Tysons Corner, Va. The three-story office buildings contain 240,309 square feet, and are 100 percent leased, primarily to the federal government.

Also, the REIT paid $11 million for the 12-story, 137,677-square-foot Merrill Lynch Building adjacent to The Mall in Columbia, which is 70 percent leased to 25 tenants.

Financing came from assumption of a $30 million first mortgage and the company’s revolving credit facility.

Dynamark expanding in Hagerstown
Dynamark Monitoring LLC, a security and alarm company serving commercial and residential customers, has purchased a 26,000-square-foot building in Hagerstown.

The company will invest approximately $1.5 million to create a state-of-the-art, UL-listed center that will monitor alarm signals nationwide, according to the Hagerstown-Washington County Economic Development Commission.

The facility will create 35 jobs with the potential to add more, and is expected to open this summer.

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, the city of Hagerstown and the Washington County Board of County Commissioners are all providing loans to help finance the new center and purchase equipment.

Rubeling awarded GBMC lobby renovation
Rubeling & Associates, a Towson-based architecture and interior design firm, has been awarded a contract, valued at more than $1 million, to design renovations of the main lobby at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

The project is split into two phases, with Phase I costing about $775,000 and Phase II about $275,000. Phase I, including upgrading an interior corridor in the main hospital building, is underway.

Renovation of the main lobby, set to commence in the spring, involves shifting the information desk to a location across from the building’s main entrance, complete with welcome signage, a decorative metal canopy and accent lighting.

Privacy screens will surround the radiology waiting area, together with ceramic tile flooring and heightened ceilings to open up space. In addition, the chapel doors will be replaced with stained glass to give the room presence.

Green, sustainable elements include the reuse and recovering of existing furniture and low-maintenance flooring.

KBE projects underway
KBE Building Corp. announced three new construction projects managed by its office in Columbia.

One is a new Walmart Supercenter to replace the existing store in Dover, Del.  The 194,000-square-foot, $12 million project is scheduled for completion in September 2011.

A second is an LA Fitness sports club in Pasadena, Md., a 40,000-square-foot, $2 million facility. Also, KBE is in the process of a selective demolition and construction project at Montrose Crossing Shopping Center in Rockville.

The former Levitt’s/IPL Furniture store is being reduced from 182,000 square feet to 82,000 to make room for a road extension behind the existing building. Demolition will be complete in November, and will be followed by construction of a new foundation and perimeter walls to accommodate new tenants.

The total project value is $8 million.

Green building workshop on St. Patrick’s Day
TW Perry, an independent building materials dealer in the Baltimore-Washington area, will present its 3rd Annual Green Building Workshop at George Mason University on Thursday, March 17.

The all-day event brings together the nation’s top experts and product manufacturers to help homebuilders, remodelers, architects and homeowners stay on top of the latest trends and innovations in green building, and share what really works.

The workshop starts at 8 a.m. and goes to 4:30 p.m. (breakfast served at 7 a.m.) at George Mason University, Center for the Arts Concert Hall, Fairfax, Va. Cost of $45 includes breakfast, lunch and all-day parking.

Continuing education credits are available from AIA; Green Building Council; NAHB and NARI. To register and for more information, got to http://gbw.twperry.com.

Former auto dealership auctioned
A spirited bidding exchange preceded the sale Tuesday of a former Schaefer & Strohminger automobile dealership at 8115 Belair Road in Baltimore County at a foreclosure auction conducted by A. J. Billig & Co., Auctioneers, of Baltimore.

The winning bidder was Max Real Estate LLC, a local investment group. Chrysler Financial Services Americas LLC was the lender.

The 5.5-acre site, located between Beltway (I-695) Exit 32 and White Marsh Boulevard, had housed Chevrolet and Honda franchises, among others. The property, which was vacant at the time of sale, contains two sales and service buildings, totaling 47,900 square feet, on paved and fenced lots.

The auction concluded a series of foreclosures held on behalf of Chrysler against S&S Enterprises, the real estate holding company of Schaefer & Strohminger.

Fillat to design Fort Howard mixed-use community
Peter Fillat Architects of Baltimore has been commissioned to design eight buildings in a new, moderate-income, mixed-use community for adults 55 years old and up on the site of the former Fort Howard Hospital in Baltimore County.

Plans call for 400 apartment units and 100,000 square feet of retail space. There will be six residential buildings oriented toward the Patapsco River, to take advantage of the 104-acre property’s waterfront location.

All of the apartment buildings will contain ground-level shops to provide convenient services and goods to residents. In addition, two separate buildings, one to be occupied by a large dine-in restaurant, the other for a bank or drugstore, are planned.

The development, located on land once occupied by the former Fort Howard Veterans Administration Hospital, will be built in several phases over a five-year period, and will focus primarily on the aging veteran population in a range of income levels.

The developer is Fort Howard Development LLC.

Engineering firm honored for work at Duke University
RMF Engineering, a Baltimore-based full-service engineering firm with expertise in sustainable energy, won multiple national awards following the completion of a $26 million restoration to transform Duke University’s East Campus into a state-of-the-art, natural gas-fueled steam plant.

Awards came from the American Institute of Architects, North Carolina; Building Design + Construction; City of Durham Golden Leaf Award; Triangle Business Journal Green Award; Southeast Construction “Best of 2010 Award”; U.S. Green Building Council; and Associated Builders & Contractors of the Carolinas.

COPT appoints board member
Retired Rear Admiral Elizabeth Hight has joined the Board of Trustees of Corporate Office Properties Trust.

Hight is the vice president of the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services U.S. Public Sector Cybersecurity Practice, which delivers strategic, end-to-end cybersecurity products that enable HP clients to anticipate, overcome and reduce security threats and vulnerabilities while achieving their mission or business outcomes.

Prior to joining HP, Hight served as acting director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and commander of the Joint Task Force – Global Network Operations.

Baltimore Green Space adds board member
Benjamin A. Kelley, an associate in the Real Estate Department at Baltimore law firm Ballard Spahr LLP, has been elected to the Board of Directors of Baltimore Green Space.

Baltimore Green Space is a land trust that partners with communities to preserve and support community gardens, pocket parks, and other community-managed open spaces.

Kelley is a member of the law firm’s Real Estate Finance Group and Transactional Finance Group.

This Week in Leases

• TidalTV, an online video advertising company, has agreed to lease 16,000 square feet of space at The Offices at McHenry Row, the office component of a 175,000-square-foot mixed-use development in the Locust Point area. The Baltimore-based company said it will relocate its approximately 40 employees from its existing headquarters in Canton by April. The new office space is large enough to hold more than 100 workers. TidalTV was started by Scott Ferber, who previously founded and subsequently sold Advertising.com.

• The lease on an A&P Supermarket at 11531 Coastal Highway in Ocean City is among 31 store leases in the Northeast that are being sold by Hilco Real Estate LLC, the Illinois-based real estate advisor to The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. The Ocean City site is the only A&P lease in Maryland that is up for sale, according to Hilco. At 24,235 square feet, it is the smallest of the A&P stores that are being shuttered as the company restructures under Chapter 11. In addition to Maryland, affected stores are located in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

• Orthopaedic Associates of Central Maryland, an 11-physician practice featuring orthopedic surgeons, podiatrists, physical medicine and rehabilitation doctors and physical therapists, has signed a lease for 12,240 square feet of space in the Liberty Exchange office building, the first office building in a 10-building, mixed-use business community that St. John Properties Inc. is developing near the intersection of MD Routes 32 and 26 (Liberty Road) in Carroll County near Eldersburg. The practice, which also has offices in Baltimore and Columbia, will open at the Carroll County location this summer. Will McCullough of St. John Properties represented the landlord and Michael Schmidt of Wallace H. Campbell & Co. represented the tenant in this transaction. The 40-acre tract of land was formerly Freedom Golf Center. The developer has to date delivered a 16,000-square-foot retail project, a 25,000-square-foot office building and a 61,000-square-foot research and development/flex space project.

• bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park announced that two early-stage companies have signed leases for space at its Life Science and Technology Incubator. EncephRx, founded in summer 2010, is working to develop small molecule drugs to slow or prevent the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Also, Spry Enterprises, a 2-year-old company whose principal office is in Hunt Valley, is focused on using semantic technologies to offer analytic and information management services to clients that include the federal government. A tech park representatives described the leased spaces as “small,” at about 100 square feet for EncephRx and half that amount for Spry. The Life Science and Technology Incubator at bwtech@UMBC currently houses more than 30 early-stage technology and life science companies.