Meridian Nabs $227M Suburban DC Office Campus

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Washington, D.C.—No stranger to multitasking, HFF recently played dual roles in the change of ownership of the 764,000-square-foot Tysons Metro Center office complex in Tysons, Va., just outside Washington, D.C.  Acting on behalf of Beacon Capital Partners, HFF sold the four-building, Class A property to Meridian Group for $227 million, and the commercial real estate and capital markets services provider also orchestrated $175 million in acquisition financing for the buyer.

Tysons Metro Center

Location is everything and Tysons Metro Center certainly ticks that box. “Three key ingredients make Tysons Corner one of the region’s most appealing submarkets: employment, transportation and amenities,” Susan Carras, senior managing director with HFF, told Commercial Property Executive. Carras was part of the HFF team that secured the financing for Meridian.

Sited near the Greensboro Station of the area’s transformational Silver Line, the 10-acre office campus consists of the 168,000-square-foot, 12-story Tysons Metro Center I; Tysons Metro Center II, a six-story building featuring 129,900 square feet; the 12-story Tysons Metro Center III, which, at 257,800 square feet, is the largest of the four buildings; and Tysons Metro Center IV, a 208,200-square-foot, 13-story structure. The buildings were developed between 1980 and 2002, and three of the four towers have been renovated within the last five years. Today, the complex is 91 percent leased to 40 occupants, among them, consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which extended its reign as anchor tenant in 2015 with the renewal of its lease of Tysons Metro Center IV.

With Meridian aboard as buyer, HFF arranged for Starwood Property Trust Inc. to provide the buyer with acquisition financing, which came in the form of a floating-rate loan. Starwood was one of many institutions that were drawn to the Tysons Metro Center financing opportunity. “The tremendous leasing momentum at Tysons Metro Center since 2012, the renewed strength of the overall Tysons market, the vitality of the specific location and the vision of the sponsor contributed to a robust response from the lending community,” Carras said. “Tysons Corner is being revitalized into an exciting ‘new-urban’ community.” It’s a transformation that can be attributed to the 2014 opening and continued rollout of the Metro’s Silver Line, and the creation of the 1-495 Hot Lanes. “In all, more than $4 billion in infrastructure improvements have redefined Tysons Corner as a cutting-edge, new-urban transit hub,” she added.

Tysons Metro Center’s new owner is playing a high-profile part in the ongoing revival of Tysons. At the beginning of 2017, Meridian announced that, with Fairfax County’s approval in hand, the real estate investment and development firm would move forward with the development of The Boro, its 4.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project.