Bridge Sells VA Office Campus for $62M

By Barbra Murray

SunTrust Center One and Two, Richmond, Va.

Bridge Investment Group—with the assistance of commercial real estate services firms Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer and Cushman & Wakefield—has sold the 419,700-square-foot SunTrust Center One and Two office park in the Innsbrook submarket of Richmond, Va. FD Stonewater bought the two-tower asset for $62.4 million.

“This opportunity garnered interest from a wide range of investors, including foreign capital. Our team’s collaborative approach produced offers from a number of institutional investors new to the Richmond market that resulted in a highly competitive bidding environment,” Eric Robison, a senior vice president with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group, said in a prepared statement.

SunTrust One, a 214,300-square-foot structure at 11011 W. Broad St., first opened its doors in 1976, and the 205,400-square-foot SunTrust Two made its debut at 11013 W. Broad St. roughly one decade later.  

The change in ownership of the 32-acre SunTrust Center comes just one year after Bridge acquired the property for $45 million in a deal Thalhimer had arranged on behalf of the seller. Bridge wasted precious little time commencing an extensive renovation of the complex, then known as WestMark One and Two, investing $30 million in the project.

Today, SunTrust One is 100 percent leased, as is SunTrust two, which was only 80 percent occupied when Bridge took over ownership in 2017. In addition to SunTrust Bank, the sole occupant of SunTrust One under a 10-year lease that commenced last year, tenants at the campus include Magellan Health and retail market intelligence provider RetailData LLC, Home Care Delivered and EMC Corp.

“The asset was highly sought after not only due to the quality of the property and tenancy but also because the fundamentals of the Richmond market, particularly the Innsbrook submarket, are so strong,” Eric Berkman, executive managing director in the Washington, D.C., office of Cushman & Wakefield, noted in prepared remarks.

Sell a little, buy a lot

It appears Bridge has been doing more buying than selling over the last several months. The company’s catalog of purchases in 2017 includes the 243,100-square-foot Tower 1320 in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, and the 358,000-square-foot Harris Corners Corporate Park office campus in Charlotte, N.C.

Bridge also enhanced its profile in the San Francisco area last year with the acquisition of 1900-2000 Alameda de las Pulgas, a 267,000-square-foot complex in San Mateo, Calif. The transaction boosted the company’s placement on Yardi Matrix’s list of the top 10 San Francisco office buyers in the first three quarters of 2017. 

Image courtesy of Bridge Investment Group