Rockville Office Building Behind On Debt Payments After County Vacates
The owner of a Rockville office building appears to be having trouble paying its debt service after the Montgomery County government fully vacated the property.
The $34M loan on the 255 Rockville Pike office building, owned by New York-based Essex Capital Partners, has gone 30 days delinquent after the county terminated its lease for the full building, according to a report from CMBS tracking firm Trepp.
The loan's maturity date is in 2037, and a transfer to a special servicer has been requested, according to Trepp. The loan makes up 23% of the collateral behind a CMBS deal originated in 2008.
Montgomery County had occupied the 145K SF office building with several agencies, but it fully vacated its offices June 30, and the agencies moved to county-owned office buildings in Rockville and Wheaton, Bethesda Magazine reported.
The agencies that occupied the building included the county's Department of Permitting Services, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Treasury/Finance and the Office of Human Resources.
The property sits at the intersection of Rockville Pike and East Middle Lane, just one block from the Rockville Metro station. The building was previously a department store in the Rockville Mall that Essex Capital Partners redeveloped in 1998 into an office building as part of its rebranded Rockville Town Center.
Essex Capital Partners principal Mitch Rutter told Bethesda Magazine the firm is looking at new uses for the building, including possibly increasing its height, and a planning official said it could potentially be increased to above 200 feet.
