Monday Properties JV Adds Tenant at DC Trophy Tower

This deal closed as the owners seek to stabilize the property and repay nonperforming debt.

The National Association of Corporate Directors has leased 40,000 square feet at The Towers, a two-building, 1.1 million-square-foot Class A office complex in Rosslyn, Va., owned by Monday Properties and Goldman Sachs. The organization, consisting of the boards of more than 1,700 corporations, is set to move its headquarters from the nearby 1515 Courthouse Road to the 24th and 25th floors of the high-rise at 1100 Wilson Blvd. under a long-term agreement. 

JLL Executive Managing Director Robert VeShancey, Senior Managing Director Herb Mansinne and Managing Director Yorke Allen represented the owner alongside Monday Senior Vice President John Wharton. Transwestern Executive Vice President Michael Goldman, Senior Vice President Kamis Lawrence and Senior Associate Claire Poole acted on behalf of the NACD, according to reporting from Bisnow.

Wharton further detailed NACD’s selection of the property to Commercial Property Executive, explaining that “they considered current and future demographics of their employees, as well as Rosslyn’s location;  with an easy commute from D.C., the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, and Alexandria (among other locations), it is highly desirable.” 


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The move will help stabilize the office campus, following the owner’s recent default on $841 million worth of commercial mortgage-backed loans for its seven-building, 2.1 million-square-foot portfolio of office properties around Rosslyn, the same article shows. Furthermore, Commercial Observer found that 1100 Wilson Blvd. individually has $249.9 million of nonperforming debt, as of this month.

Presently, the ownership is in a special servicing agreement to repay the loans and is attempting to drive up occupancy to stimulate cash flows, according to Bisnow. Parts of this effort include recent return-to-office-focused renovations of some of 1100 Wilson’s amenity spaces such as a new 12,000-square-foot conference center, as well as a tenant lounge. Additional upgrades feature a new rooftop terrace with entertaining areas and a 12,000-square-foot fitness center.

NACD’s neighbors

Built in 1985 as the second component of The Towers, 1100 Wilson Blvd. underwent cosmetic renovations in 2002, according to CommercialEdge information. The LEED Gold-certified building has 19,787-square-foot floorplates and 44,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The NACD’s new base of operations will join several regionally based tenants on the tower’s roster, including the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, which has a 40,000-square-foot administrative and learning space on the building’s top two floors. The building’s longstanding anchor tenant is defense and aerospace giant RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), which has leased 116,000 square feet for its Intelligence & Space divisions.

The Towers is 3 miles from downtown Washington, D.C., while central Arlington, Va., is less than 3 miles southwest. Situated in the Rosslyn-Ballston commercial corridor, the campus is near tech tenants including Microsoft, IntraFi and the SAS Institute.

Investing in Arlington

In addition to its longstanding government presence, Northern Virginia’s office market has seen investment and leasing activity from tech and professional services as well, resulting in Class A rents of $40 per square foot, according to a recent JLL report. Research shows that 40 percent of the tenants signing leases in the fourth quarter of 2023 are in tech, finance, accounting and consulting.

On the development side, the most notable project remained Amazon’s second headquarters, which is expected to resume on-site construction activity this year. Also, in November, Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate topped out Fuse at Madison Square, a 345,000-square-foot research complex developed in collaboration with George Mason University.