Jamestown Buys NSF HQ in Ballston
Jamestown now owns both buildings in NSF's Ballston HQ. The German-backed, Atlanta-based fund bought the 587k SF Stafford Place I yesterday for $210M after paying $90M for the 184k SF Stafford Place II in June. The NSF leases 86% of the two buildings right now, but in 2017 the agency will move to Alexandria.
Jamestown says it plans to aggressively market the two properties to fill the 647k SF the NSF will leave empty. Despite high vacancy and his anchor tenant's imminent departure, “we see the area at an inflection point,” Jamestown president Michael Phillips says. “With corporate and more entrepreneurial enterprises taking space among the amenity-rich Ballston submarket, Wilson Boulevard holds tremendous promise as a destination for the new innovation economy and the creative class.”
The two buildings, at 4201 and 4121 Wilson Blvd, are across the street from Ballston Common Mall, which Forest City Washington is redeveloping into an open-air town center. To try to attract those creative class workers and employers, Jamestown plans architectural and system upgrades, streetscape improvements, and to renovate the lobby and atrium. Transwestern executive managing director Gerry Trainor brokered the sale.
