COPT Announces Two New Virginia Data Centers

Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE: OFC), a Columbia, Md.-based office real estate investment trust, announced on Monday, January 14, it plans to build two shell buildings in Ashburn, Va. (Ashburn Crossing). The company’s total investment in Ashburn Crossing is projected to be $42 million. It includes the remaining land on which the company can build one additional building. This is the latest addition to Loudon County’s growing data center market. The project will include two buildings with a total of 315,000 square feet. Construction on COPT DC-8, the first building, will start in early 2013. COPT DC-8 will total 200,000 square feet. The second building, COPT DC-9, will total 115,000 square feet. COPT plans to start work on in no later than mid-2014.

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE: OFC), a Columbia, Md.-based office real estate investment trust, announced on Jan. 14 that it plans to develop two shell buildings in Ashburn, Va. (Ashburn Crossing). The company’s total investment in Ashburn Crossing is projected to be $42 million. It includes the remaining land, on which the company can build one additional building.

This is the latest addition to Loudon County’s growing data center market. The project will include two buildings with a total of 315,000 square feet. Construction on COPT DC-8, the first building, will start in early 2013. COPT DC-8 will total 200,000 square feet. The second building, COPT DC-9, will total 115,000 square feet. COPT plans to start work on it no later than mid-2014.

The two buildings will be developed on land the company purchased on Dec. 27, 2012, from St. John’s Properties. According to Loudoun County land records, COPT DC-8 L.L.C., an affiliate of the Columbia-based real estate investment trust, paid $14 million for the 34-acre site, more than $400,000 per acre. The acreage is located off Smith Switch Road, near the intersection of Gloucester Parkway and Loudoun County Parkway, in the center of data center activity in Northern Virginia.

COPT announced it executed leases with a subsidiary of an investment-grade Fortune 500 company but did not disclose its name. According to the Washington Business Journal, Amazon is the anchor tenant. The REIT signed the leases at the end of 2012. They brought COPT’s development leasing volume to 1.2 million square feet for the year.

“We are pleased to be able to meet this customer’s need in Northern Virginia, one of COPT’s strategic markets,” Roger A. Waesche, Jr., President & Chief Executive Officer of COPT, said in a news release. “These leases further evidence COPT’s discipline in matching new development starts to projects where demand is strong and/or where we have leases in-hand,” he added.

Rendering of COPT DC-6 courtesy of www.coptdata.com

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