Paramount Sells Trophy DC Office Building for $155M

Liberty Place. Image courtesy of Paramount Group

Paramount Group has sold Liberty Place in Washington, D.C., for $154.5 million. The office building in the East End submarket is a landmark asset that spans across 172,000 square feet. The 12-story property last changed hands in 2011, when Paramount purchased it for $139 million from Beacon Capital Partners, per Yardi Matrix.  

Located at 325 Seventh St. N.W., next to the Archives Metro Station and near the White House and the U.S. Capitol., the 1991-built Liberty Place was fully incorporated with the historic Fireman’s Fund Building in 1993. The LEED Gold certified office building has floorplates that range from 13,300 to 17,400 square feet and includes a fitness center and a parking facility. According to Yardi Matrix data, the U.S. Department of Justice, Sonecon and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association are among the tenants of the property.

According to Albert Behler, Paramount’s chair, CEO & president, the sale of Liberty Place was part of the company’s “capital recycling strategy” that entails selling off stabilized properties to secure funds for more ambitious ventures.

Trading up   

The proceeds from the Liberty Place sale are slated to fund the coming purchase of Market Center, a two-building office property in San Francisco. In August, Paramount entered into a $722 million contract to buy the 753,000-square-foot property in the city’s South Financial District. Paramount announced that the company is likely to bring in a joint venture partner before the close of the contract in the fourth quarter of this year.

The REIT still owns two other buildings in Washington, D.C., including 1899 Pennsylvania Avenue, an 11-story, 192,481-square-foot office property, and the Commercial National Bank Building, an 11-story, 224,558-square-foot office building that encompasses nearly 10,000 square foot of retail space.