JBG Smith Reaches Deal To Sell Warner Building For $380M
JBG Smith, the REIT that landed Amazon this week with its Crystal City portfolio, is continuing to unload D.C. assets.
The Chevy Chase-based REIT has reached an agreement to sell the Warner Building at 1299 Pennsylvania Ave. NW to CBRE Global Investors for $380M, Real Estate Alert reports. CBRE Global Investors and JBG Smith declined to comment on the deal.
The building sits three blocks from the White House and is home to the historic Warner Theatre, which opened in 1924. The 600K SF office component of the building was constructed in 1993 and renovated in 2012.
Eastdil Secured is brokering the sale, which pencils out to roughly $621/SF. The 13-story office building is nearly fully occupied, but law firm Baker Botts will vacate a large chunk when it departs to Meridian Group's Anthem Row in 2020. The building is also occupied by Cooley, General Electric and ONE Campaign, among others.
The building was part of Vornado's D.C. portfolio that merged with The JBG Cos. last year, and it was owned in partnership with a Canadian pension fund. JBG Smith has been selling off a series of properties, many of them legacy Vornado assets, amid what it sees as a seller's market.
The REIT began signaling its selling strategy in March and has not slowed down since. Last week, it said in its earnings report it reached a deal to sell a Reston office complex for $115M, a deal that brought its 2018 haul from sales and recapitalizations to over $650M. Last month, it sold D.C.'s Lion Building for $65M. JBG Smith is one of several D.C.-area REITs pursuing a strategy of selling properties.
The sales come as JBG Smith receives national attention for its Crystal City portfolio — also composed of legacy Vornado assets — winning the nation's largest economic development prize. Amazon announced Tuesday it would lease a handful of buildings from JBG Smith in Crystal City and acquire nearby development sites from the REIT as part of its HQ2 project.
