Highwoods Sells 11 Office Buildings for $40.7M

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Highwoods Properties Inc. sold 11 office properties in Henrico County in two separate transactions last month for a total of $40.7 million.

Totaling some 359,000 square feet, the properties are located in the Innsbrook submarket. Four of them were acquired by Westdale Real Estate Investment and Management; the deal was the Dallas-based company’s second in Richmond this year. The properties are located off of Nuckols Road in the Concourse at Wyndham. Included in Westdale’s acquisition were West Shore I (18,765 square feet); West Shore II (28,355 square feet); West Shore III (53,690 square feet); and Grove Park I (62,471 square feet).

Lingerfelt Companies purchased the remaining properties, five of them located in Vantage Park, the other two in Technology Park. Together, they total 195,881 square feet of space and are leased to 34 tenants.

Lingerfelt’s new assets are:

• Vantage Pointe: a two-story building completed in 1988;
• Vantage Place A – D: four single-story dating from 1987;
• Technology Park I & II: two single-story office buildings developed in 1991.

Eric Robison of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Richmond office represented Highwoods in both transactions. “This acquisition is another indication of investors’ confidence in the growth potential of the Richmond market,” he said in a statement.

In a recent report, CBRE Group Inc. said that the vacancy rate in the Richmond market dropped to a five-year low of 13.6 during the second quarter on the strength of 91,467 square feet of net absorption. Much of that activity took place in Richmond’s Northwest quadrant, which includes Innsbrook.

According to CBRE, the Innsbrook submarket has recovered since being hit hard during the recession, registering more than 1.1 million square feet of net absorption over the last four years. Vacancy dropped 0.5 percent to 11.6 percent during the second quarter, thanks to 27,658 square feet of net absorption.

Charts courtesy of CBRE.