BALTIMORE (December 10, 2009) – St. John Properties, Inc. has scheduled a double groundbreaking ceremony for Monday, December 14 at 11:30 am that will signal the initiation of construction activities for two separate commercial office buildings leased by L-3 Communications (NYSE:LLL) and Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN). The projects – 6260 Guardian Gateway and 6280 Guardian Gateway – consist of 75,000 square feet of space each at The Government and Technology Enterprise (The GATE) project, a 416-acre business community located within Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) in Harford County.

Expected to participate in the ceremony are executives from St. John Properties, L-3 Communications and Raytheon Company, as well as United States Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, Harford County Executive David Craig, Aberdeen Mayor Michael Bennett and Colonel Orlando Ortiz, APG Garrison Commander.

L-3’s Command & Control Systems and Software (C2S2) unit, headquartered in Marlton, NJ, is expected to add approximately 400 employees to its Harford County site at The GATE and the Massachusetts-based Raytheon Company intends to employ nearly 300 workers at the business community. Both three-story, Class “A” projects are expected to be delivered in fall 2010.

6260 and 6280 Guardian Gateway are designed to satisfy the requirements for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver-certification and include a high-efficiency HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) system, high performance windows, lavatory fixtures with sustainable elements, a white thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofing system, wetland/forest preserves and significant open space and drought-tolerant landscaping, among other features.

“The addition of L-3 Communications and Raytheon Company to The GATE adds more highly skilled and educated workers to Harford County, which will subsequently spur new economic development opportunities throughout the entire region,” stated Ed St. John, Founder and President of St. John Properties. “We have achieved a tremendous amount of momentum in a relative short amount of time at The GATE, and we anticipate multiple groundbreakings in 2010 as we keep pace with this office demand.”

“This is an exciting day for Aberdeen Proving Ground and yet another step in preparing for the thousands of jobs coming to this area in support of the military base realignment known as BRAC,” Congressman Ruppersberger said. “We fought long and hard to improve APG over the last decade, and the enhanced use lease was one of the vehicles used to spur investment. This is simply about reinvesting in the post and creating jobs in the process.”

The GATE is the only commercial real estate development that is located within Aberdeen Proving Ground. As part of the first phase of development of the project, St. John Properties is currently constructing five office buildings and research and development (R&D) buildings totaling more than 285,000 square feet of space, which are designed to satisfy the backlog of commercial real estate space that presently exists at The GATE project. St. John Properties estimates the total build-out of the project to be approximately two million square feet over more than 20 years.

St. John Properties, Inc., founded in 1971 as MIE Properties, owns and has developed more than 14 million square feet of R&D/flex, warehouse, office and retail space in Maryland, Colorado, Louisiana, Virginia and Wisconsin. For more information about the company, visit sjp.mu9b0uf9-liquidwebsites.com.

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