Stonewater Sells Park Center I for $73 million

Stonewater Partners announced today the disposition of Park Center I in Alexandria, VA for $73 million. The 14-story, 232,123 square foot office building was 100% leased, primarily as the headquarters for two US Government agencies: the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services and Department of Defense’s US Army Audit Agency headquarters. The purchaser was an affiliate of Northwestern Mutual Life who has a major presence within the office park. Jones Lang LaSalle’s Washington DC team headed by Collins Ege represented Stonewater in the sale.
Commenting on the transaction, Jeffrey Toporek, a Stonewater principal, said "This sale represents the successful execution of a business strategy we identified when Stonewater was founded. We actively seek to acquire opportunistic real estate – in this particular case short term leased single tenant properties – add value, and then exit. At Park Center, Stonewater repositioned the anchor lease for USDA by extending the term for 10 years, substantially increasing rent and parking revenue, and re-measuring the building according to current BOMA standards. Stonewater acquired the asset for $37.5 million in 2004 with only two years remaining on each of the government leases. Since the acquisition, Stonewater has invested several million dollars in capital improvements, including a $1 million garage renovation project.”
David Stade, also a Stonewater principal, added: “Despite the turbulent capital markets, the sale price exceeded our expectations, which is a testament to the credit quality, long term nature of the lease and a strong DC office market. The Jones Lang LaSalle team was able to navigate the choppy waters in the capital markets by identifying an all-cash strategic purchaser who performed in less than 10 days. The purchaser has the unique opportunity to reassemble the office park, redevelop the retail and resolve some parking allotment issues. There are few transactions where both seller and buyer win and this is clearly one of them.”

Founded in 2003, Stonewater is a boutique real estate investment firm with over $250 million of acquisitions to date. The company seeks to identify niche opportunities in the real estate capital markets acquiring office, industrial, retail and hotel assets across the United States. For more information please visit www.stonewaterinc.com.
For further information contact:

Jeffrey Toporek
Tel: (914) 285-3700

David Stade
Tel: (310) 209-0500



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