COLUMBIA, MD-Amtrak is taking a full building here in a five-year lease. The railroad company will use the 48,000-square-foot building, located at 101 Pennisula Dr., to house three separate support divisions. 

Transwestern agents Tom Gentner, Mark Glagola and Brian Watts represented the landlord, Peninsula Holdings LLC. Todd Hughes of Jones Lang LaSalle spoke for Amtrak. 

“This was a consolidation for Amtrak,” Gentner tells GlobeSt.com. “They are tickled pink to be in a modern facility.”

101 Peninsula Dr. is located within the Peninsula Industrial Park in Cecil County, along Interstate 95. The Washington, DC-area industrial market has been a story of haves and have nots, especially since the recession, with the region closest to the Baltimore market holding its own, for a variety of reasons including the investments made at the Port of Baltimore and the city’s solid industrial base. The Amtrak deal is arguably a reflection of that trend. 

But the have-nots in the region--Route 28 North in the Dulles, VA-based submarket--are starting to see more activity now. Recently Raytheon Co. announced it was taking 102,691 feet in two industrial/flex buildings at 23010 and 23011 Ladbrook Dr., there . It joins other newly-signed deals, prompting Transwestern’s Caulley Deringer to tell GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview that they marked the beginning of a turnaround for the corridor. 

Since the beginning of the year, Deringer says, industrial vacancies along the corridor dropped by slightly less than 10% to approximately 14.6%. He thinks the rate will drop even further, by as much as another 10% to 15% within the next quarter as these new leases are counted.