COPT Sells Baltimore County Assets for $48.7M

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust announced that it sold two Baltimore County properties for $48.7 million as part of its Strategic Reallocation Plan. The properties are a 13-building portfolio in the Rutherford Business Center in Woodlawn sold for $32.5 million, and a warehouse and land at White Marsh Commerce Center sold for $16.25 million. COPT did not disclose the buyers.

The Rutherford portfolio included 13 buildings totaling 365,400 square feet of flex and office space. It is located in the Baltimore County Westside submarket, on Ambassador Road and Governor’s Court. The oldest structure was built in 1972 and the remaining in the early and mid-1980s. As of September 30, 2011, the portfolio was 79 percent leased, with 30 leases to 29 tenants. James Wellschlager and Jonathan Carpenter of Cassidy Turley listed the Rutherford portfolio.

The White Marsh Commerce Center sale included a 218,000 square foot warehouse and 13.38 acres of land. Located at 10001 Franklin Square Drive, the large industrial warehouse was built in 1996. As of September 30, 2011, it was 100 percent leased (four leases to three tenants).

COPT Chief Executive Randall M. Griffin stated in a press release that the proceeds would go to finance the company’s construction pipeline of multi-story office buildings. The asset sales were part of COPT’s Strategic Reallocation Plan. Since announcing the plan in April 2011, COPT has sold $76.7 million of properties containing approximately 894,150 square feet.

Corporate Office Properties Trust is a specialty office real estate investment trust (REIT), focused primarily on strategic customer relationships and specialized tenant requirements in the U.S. Government and Defense Information Technology sectors and Data Centers serving such sectors. As of September 30, 2011, the Company owned 266 office properties totaling 21.3 million rentable square feet, which includes 20 properties totaling 1.1 million square feet held through joint ventures.