ING acquired the building from Hines as part of a three-property package deal that included two other single-tenanted facilities, a 218,000-sf office building in Houston and a 215,000-sf office property in Dallas, for an additional $93.4 million.

It was back in 2001 that a Hines fund constructed 3150 Fairview Park Dr. as a build-to-suit for Mitretek, a nonprofit scientific research and system engineering organization, with the intention of selling the fully occupied property for a desirable profit. Located on a nearly 16-acre parcel at the intersection of Route 50 and I-495, the steel, concrete and glass structure features eight stories of class A office space. Mitretek's 15-year lease on the building is not scheduled to expire until 2017.

The office market in Northern Virginia continues to be a hot ticket and is still high on investors' list, thus the property's sale price of $367 per-sf. In Northern Virginia, the average sale price for a class A office property for the first half of 2004 was $241.65, according to Advantis Real Estate Services Co.'s Mid-Year 2004 Office Report. For the seller, the timing was just right.

"Given the return expectation of the Hines fund that developed and owned the building, it made good sense to market it at this time," Hines senior vice president Tom Owens tells GlobeSt.com. "It will help us meet the return objective we promised the investor."