CoreCivic Sells 3 for $326M

Social Security Administration office building in Reisterstown, Md. Image courtesy of CoreCivic

Nearly three years after acquiring the 541,000-square-foot Social Security Administration office building in a Baltimore suburb for $242 million, CoreCivic sold its interests in SSA Baltimore Holdings LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company and owner of the property.

CoreCivic did not release the price of the building at 6100 Wabash Ave. in Reisterstown, Md., but stated that the total for the Baltimore SSA building and two additional properties was $326 million. The other assets, sold earlier in the second quarter, were the Capital Commerce Center, a 277,000-square-foot office building at 2601 South Blair Stone Road in Tallahassee, Fla., leased to the state of Florida, and a 217,000-square-foot National Archives and Administration warehouse at 8801 Kingsridge Drive in Miami Township, Ohio. All three properties were purchased in 2018, in separate transactions, for a total of $293.6 million.

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Damon Hininger, president and CEO of Brentwood, Tenn.,-based CoreCivic, said in a prepared statement that the sale of the three assets is part of the company’s plan to strengthen its balance sheet. Hininger said the company generated net proceeds of nearly $30 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 from sales of 42 non-core government-leased assets. Including those sales, he said the company has exceeded its targeted net proceeds from the sale of non-core assets of up to $150 million announced in August 2020 in connection with the decision to revoke its election as a REIT.

Concurrent with the sale of the three properties, CoreCivic used $194.4 million of the aggregate sales proceeds to fully repay two non-recourse mortgage notes associated with SSA-Baltimore and Capital Commerce Center, including repayment premiums of $32.5 million. The total outstanding balances of the non-recourse mortgage notes, both of which had interest rates of 4.5 percent, were $161.9 million on the dates sold. The sale of the three non-core government-leased properties generated net proceeds of nearly $130 million after repayment of the non-recourse mortgage notes and other costs.

Earlier Deals

CoreCivic acquired the SSA Baltimore property in September 2018 from an affiliate of The JBG Cos. JBG, in partnership with Klein Enterprises, had developed the building in 2012 and leased it to the Social Security Administration for 20 years under a contract set to expire in January 2034. At the time of the acquisition, Hininger said the company was expanding its portfolio of government-leased real estate assets and was attracted to the opportunity to acquire a high-quality, transit-oriented property leased to the federal government under a long-term contract.

In January 2020, CoreCivic completed the acquisition of a portfolio of 28 properties, all leased to the federal government through the General Services Administration, for approximately $83.2 million. The 445,000-square-foot portfolio included buildings occupied by several government entities, including the Social Security Administration the and Department of Homeland Security. The properties are located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee.