COPT Sells Eight White Marsh Properties for $28.75M

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Corporate Office Properties Trust announced last week it has completed the sale of eight commercial properties in the Greater Baltimore submarket of White Marsh. The properties were sold in three separate transactions for a total of $28.75 million. According to COPT, the transactions generated net proceeds of $28.0 million.

In a news release, COPT says it sold the properties at 9930 and 9940 Franklin Square Drive to an owner-occupier. The two buildings total 72,000 square feet of space and were 62.5 percent occupied at the time of the sale. According to COPT, they sold for $145 per square foot, or $10.44 million. Real estate website PropertyShark lists the total market value of 9930 and 9940 Franklin Square Drive at $9.65 million.

The two industrial buildings at 4969 and 4979 Mercantile Road offer 97,000 square feet of space and, according to PropertyShark, were both constructed in 1985. The real estate website lists their total market value at $7.99 million. COPT says it sold the two properties to an unnamed local developer, for $61 per square foot or about $5.9 million.

5020, 5022 and 5024 Campbell Boulevard are office buildings, while 5026 Campbell Boulevard offers flex space. The four properties total 134,000 square feet and were 75.4 percent occupied at the time of the sale. They were acquired by a 1031-exchange buyer for $93 per square foot or about $12.4 million. Their total market value is $12.58 million, according to PropertyShark.

COPT says the sales represent a ”strategic pruning” of its office portfolio and will help strengthen the overall quality of the company’s core holdings. With these three dispositions, COPT’s White Marsh portfolio was reduced to about 744,000 square feet of space. At June 30, 2014, this portfolio was 90.3 percent leased to institutional quality tenants, such as Johns Hopkins University or Comcast Corporation.