NewMarket Corp. Sells 311 KSF Office Building in Richmond, Va., for $144M

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

The world headquarters of paper, packaging and specialty chemical manufacturer MeadWestvaco, a nine-story, 310,950-square-foot trophy office building in Richmond, Va., has been purchased by Select Income REIT, of Newton, Mass., for $143.6 million, excluding transaction costs, it was announced Tuesday.

The seller was NewMarket Corp., of Richmond, which owned the land and developed the building as a BTS for MeadWestvaco, a spokesperson for HFF told Commercial Property Executive. The sale closed on July 2, according to the spokesperson, and MeadWestvaco’s current lease runs until June 2023.

HFF had marketed the property on behalf of the seller. The HFF investment sales team representing NewMarket included executive managing director Stephen Conley; senior managing directors Dek Potts, Jim Meisel and Andrew Weir; and senior real estate analyst Jess Dickinson.

The building drew a strong response from the investment community, leading to “highly competitive pricing for the asset,” Potts said in a release.

The MeadWestvaco HQ is at 501 S. 5th St., on the James River and close to I-95 and I-195, James River Park and Richmond’s River District. It was completed in 2009 and features a conference and training center, cafeteria, coffee shop and fitness center with locker rooms. The building also has a Four Globes rating (the highest possible) from the Green Building Initiative.

A call to Select Income REIT on Wednesday for comment was not returned.

The REIT focuses on properties that are net-leased to single tenants, and about half of its current rents are from land that SIR owns in Hawaii, which is leased under long-term leases to tenants, many of whom own buildings and operate their businesses on SIR’s property. The remaining revenues come from single-tenant net-leased office and industrial properties throughout the United States.

Although NewMarket Corp. is primarily a maker of specialty chemicals, such as fuel additives, through its subsidiaries Afton Chemical Corp. and Ethyl Corp., its NewMarket Development Corp. affiliate develops real estate, primarily in the eastern United States.