STERLING, VA (November 13, 2014) – St. John Properties, Inc. has announced the acquisition of a three-building, 125,000 square foot office/flex portfolio located in Sterling, Virginia for $11.65 million. The properties, located at 21660, 21670 and 21680 Ridgetop Circle in the Loudoun Tech Center, are currently 36% leased. Steve Gichner and Eric Berkman of Cushman and Wakefield represented the seller in this transaction. With this acquisition, St. John Properties now owns and manages more than 570,000 square feet of office and flex space in the Northern Virginia market, as well as approximately 83 acres of land for several future development projects.

The three, single-story office/flex buildings offer footprints of approximately 57,000 square feet of space, 36,000 square feet of space and 32,000 square feet of space, respectively, with frontage on Nokes Boulevard, fourteen foot clear ceiling heights, a parking ratio of 4.5 per 1,000 square feet and connectivity to several fiber optic networks. The three buildings were constructed between 2000 and 2001, and the largest of the three is 78% leased to tenants including Textron Systems and Sonus Networks. The other two buildings are 100% vacant. The Loudoun Tech Center is situated in the Route 28 North technology corridor, with convenient access to VA Routes 7 and 28 and Washington Dulles International Airport. The park is in close proximity to numerous amenities including retail, dining, hotels and day care. Dulles Town Center Mall is nearby, as is Claude Moore Park, Northern Virginia Community College and the George Washington University Virginia campus.

St. John Properties plans improvements and enhancements at the three buildings designed to elevate the appearance of the park, to be more in line with is other business parks that offer a Class “A” corporate environment. The company will also commence construction on 282,000 square feet of speculative R&D/flex/office space at its nearby Ashburn Crossing business community. The two parks, Ashburn Crossing and Loudoun Tech, are situated at opposite ends of Loudoun County’s Gloucester Parkway Extension Project, a $40 million road connection linking Gloucester Parkway to Route 28 and Nokes Boulevard. Construction for this road connection began several weeks ago. When completed in 2016, the new road will provide another east-west arterial road to supplement Waxpool Road and VA Route 7, and provide interconnection between the towns of Sterling and Ashburn.

“We remain extremely bullish on Northern Virginia. The fundamentals remain strong, in spite of market challenges over the past several years,” explained Matt Holbrook, Regional Partner for St. John Properties. “The absorption rate of our current portfolio has been robust thanks, in part, to the local work force, technology infrastructure and the excellent quality of life that exists in the region. The high-technology work force has amazing depth, and companies gravitate to this area to access this specialized labor force. With the Internet backbone running through this area, this section of Northern Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. Add to that the fact that Loudoun is a great place to live, educate kids and start, grown or relocate a company.

“The three Loudoun Tech Center buildings provide us with immediate capacity to respond to the expansion needs of our existing tenants in the area and the emerging real estate requirements of new companies discovering the advantages of Northern Virginia,” Holbrook added. “The buildings are strategically positioned to complement our current portfolio footprint and we intend to add significant value with the infusion of new tenants and completion of our improvement package. We also remain extremely optimistic about short-term and long-term prospects for additional land and building acquisition in Northern Virginia.”

St. John Properties recently completed its Ashburn Technology Park, a 43-acre business community containing eight R&D/office/flex buildings with 445,000 square of space including tenants such as Carrier Corporation, Comcast, Dulles Area Association of Realtors, Volkswagen/Audi, Lost Rhino Brewery and VeriSign. The company delivered two buildings last year that were recognized with NAIOP Northern Virginia’s “Best Building, R&D/Flex/Industrial” award.

St. John Properties, Inc., founded in 1971, owns and has developed nearly 17 million square feet of R&D/flex, office, retail and warehouse space in Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin. For more information about the company, visit sjp.mu9b0uf9-liquidwebsites.com.

For more information, contact:
Al Cunniff, Director of Marketing, St. John Properties, Inc.
410-369-1277