News
HOW THE GATE SAVED APG
January 19, 2012
| Aberdeen Proving Ground was among the military bases the government nearly shuttered in the late '90s. That was before the idea of an enhanced-use lease, which removed the drain from the military's wallet and instead produced an income stream for the base to reinvest in itself. Now it's a BRAC '05 winner, and as much as 3M SF is going up spec at The GATE Office & Tech Park. |
 |
| St. John Properties' Matt Holbrook, whom we snapped with colleague Jerry Wit, tells us he worked for Opus East in '04 when the now-defunct developer won the award to do an enhanced-use lease for 416 acres at the Army base. Opus filed for bankruptcy in July '09, two days after Matt moved over to St. John Properties. In October of that year, the bankruptcy court finalized the transfer of master developer rights for The GATE to St. John, along with the building housing the park's first tenant (CACI), the land for a building that was immediately leased to Raytheon, and the ground lease for a third tenant, L-3 Communications (good thing since St. John and L-3 had already signed a building lease). Best of all, the ruling also means no one can contest St. John's rights at The GATE (Government and Technology Enterprise, and it's right next to the base's gate—excellent double entendre). |
 |
| Ed St. John himself was also kind enough to spare a few minutes to say hi. Matt tells us on his behalf that Ed took a leap of faith by taking on Matt and The GATE project. Now that BRAC has brought C4ISR (all you need to know is that the I, S and R stand for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) to the base and the legalities are worked out, demand is strong enough that St. John can continue building spec. In fact, C4ISR has filled its space at the base and is one of the demand drivers at The GATE, along with the defense contractors that serve it. St. John will build 2M to 3M SF over 10 years. 526k SF are done, and another 300k are somewhere between the engineers and the bulldozers. Matt says the enhanced-use lease makes the base partly self-funding. The federal government isn't wasting money, and the base is pulling in dollars it can reinvest in infrastructure. |
 |
| When we first arrived at St. John's royally addressed 2560 Lord Baltimore Drive office, the company was unveiling an onsite electrical vehicle charging station. With Jerry are SemaConnect CEO Mahi Reddy (the manufacturer) and St. John sustainability director Justin Schaub. |
 |
| The parking space at the charging station does its best to maintain its green rep. It also suspiciously resembles a putting green. |
 |
| Here's a present to Ed (left) from Greenebaum & Rose's Stewart Greenebaum (right): a wall-hung sculpture of the pair playing real Monopoly. (Remember when people actually wanted to "be the bank"?) The pair most recently has partnered on the 600-acre Maple Lawn mixed-use project in Howard County. Jerry tells us St. John is looking for land and building acquisitions, which are selling for less than replacement cost, and it has two buildings under contract. |
 |
| On Tuesday, the firm announced it has broken ground on the fourth building in the 215k SF Liberty Exchange mixed-use community in Carroll County. The 25k SF of office going up now joins a 61k SF R&D/flex building, a 17k SF retail building, and another 25k SF office. The single-story 5963 Exchange Dr (rendered above) will finish next quarter and would work for medical and traditional office tenants. Liberty Exchange has six more buildings on the way. |
