Brookfield Sells Rosslyn Buildings For $100M As It Focuses On Other NoVa Projects
Brookfield Office Properties is cashing out of a Rosslyn office asset as it turns its attention to large-scale, mixed-use developments.
The firm sold the office buildings at 1550 and 1560 Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn to a high net worth individual for $102.5M in a deal that closed last week.
Cushman & Wakefield's capital markets team, led by Bill Collins, Paul Collins, Drew Flood and Eric Berkman, brokered the deal on behalf of Brookfield.
The buildings at 1550 and 1560 Wilson were constructed in 1984 and 1986, respectively. They include 248K SF of total office space and 33K SF of retail, plus a parking garage.
The office space is roughly 75% leased with its tenants including the American Institute for Cancer Research, CannonDesign, LADO International Institute and Olgoonik Global Security. Roughly 5K SF of the ground-floor retail space at 1550 Wilson, previously occupied by Cafe Asia, was leased earlier this year to workout studio Bash Boxing.
Brookfield Executive Vice President Greg Meyer said the sale is part of the company's plan to generate capital from existing properties to put toward new developments.
"We're investing in areas where we have more density, typically bigger projects," Meyer said. "The Wilson buildings, while they're good buildings and represent good opportunities for the next owner, they're small, stand-alone assets that fit a little less well into our strategy."
In Reston, Brookfield is planning a 4M SF mixed-use development anchored by a Wegmans grocery store. The developer filed plans with Fairfax County earlier this year that call for 1.5M SF of office, 1,721 residential units, 380K SF of retail and a 280-room hotel, in addition to the two six-story buildings currently on the site.
Brookfield also has a major asset in Pentagon City that it plans to redevelop. The firm owns the two-building, 550K SF office complex that the Transportation Security Administration will vacate in early 2021 when it moves to its new Springfield headquarters.
The Pentagon City property became much more attractive this month when Amazon announced it plans to build a major piece of its new HQ2 campus on the PenPlace development site, which sits one block from Brookfield's property.
Meyer said the company has not yet decided what type of redevelopment it plans to pursue. He said his team is studying the office leasing activity Amazon could spur in the area to determine if it should keep the property as office, but he said it may also explore complementary uses to Amazon's campus, such as multifamily.
"Multifamily isn't as profitable as office on its face, but putting residential next to office would go a long way toward keeping cars off the street and mitigating traffic," Meyer said.
