Carr Properties Kicks Off NoVa Office Tower Construction

By Gail Kalinoski

2311 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va.

Arlington, Va.—With its anchor tenant in place, Carr Properties is moving ahead with construction of 2311 Wilson Blvd., a 175,000-square-foot, eight-story trophy office building in the Clarendon-Court House neighborhood of Arlington.

OPower, a technology company that provides software solutions for energy companies and utilities, will be moving its corporate headquarters to the new office building that is slated for completion in late 2017. The tech company, which was recently acquired as a subsidiary of Oracle Corp., is leasing 45,000 square feet, according to a third-quarter 2016 market report from Colliers International.

MFTA Architecture is the design firm and Clark Construction are project partners with Carr Properties, a leading owner, operator and developer of office properties in the Washington, D.C., metro area.

“We are thrilled to be starting construction of 2311 Wilson and are excited to deliver a cutting edge building in the heart of the R/B Corridor. Our development team at Carr, working together with MFTA Design and Clark Construction will make this a very special project,” Oliver Carr, III, CEO of Carr Properties, said in a prepared statement.

Carr Properties along with MFTA, Clark Construction and the Arlington County Board held an official groundbreaking ceremony this week at the Northern Virginia site. Located one block from the Metro’s Orange and Silver lines, 2311 Wilson Blvd. is also near Interstate 66, Route 50 and Route 29/Lee Highway.

The project has been in the works for nearly two years. In December, 2014, Carr Properties began demolition and pre-construction at the development site. The LEED Gold-certified building will have a glass tower and two-story glass entry lobby and feature 24,800-square-foot floor plates with column-free spacing and light-filled interiors. Amenities will include a state-of-the-art conference facility; childcare center with an outdoor play area; health club; 5,900-square-foot rooftop terrace; bocce court; urban park; bike center and on-site retail.

“For many years, this underdeveloped site incubated numerous businesses like MFTA Architecture and will now fulfill a higher purpose,” Michael Foster, an investor and managing principal in MFTA Architecture, said in prepared remarks. “It’s great to partner with Carr Properties on this redevelopment to achieve the highest office building standards in the marketplace.”

In addition to OPower, Carr Properties is in talks with several other prospective tenants that could, in total, lease up almost half of the office space, according to a report in the Washington Business Journal. The publication reported that Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the property for Carr Properties.

The overall Northern Virginia office market, which had been adversely affected by the government sequestration, is starting to slowly rebound with a vacancy rate of 18.7 percent, according to a recent Colliers office market report. However, the Rosslyn/Ballston Corridor, where 2311 Wilson Blvd. is located, had a higher vacancy rate—22.3 percent—for the third quarter. It did have the highest direct asking rate rent of $43.17 for all the Northern Virginia submarkets. The report noted that the amount of new office construction in Northern Virginia, including 2311 Wilson Blvd., “continued to be some of the highest in the United States, and local developers continued to favor precommitted projects over purse speculative development due to uncertainty in the current market.”

Carr Properties, a privately held REIT, currently owns 16 office properties totaling about 4 million square feet as well as four major development properties that include: Midtown Center in Washington, D.C., the former Washington Post headquarters; 7272 Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda, Md.; 2025 Clarendon Blvd. in Arlington and 2311 Wilson Blvd. These four projects will add 2.2 million square feet of trophy-quality office space to Carr Properties’ portfolio.