DULLES, VA-CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust has entered into an agreement to purchase four office buildings, along with 22 acres of land here, from AOL for a reported price of $144.5 million. The four buildings, located at 22110-22270 Pacific Blvd., range in size from 173,554 to 175,021 square feet, a total 696,391 square feet. All four are fully leased on a long-term basis to two tenants, one of which is Raytheon, which with much fanfare took 600,000 square feet in a deal with AOL last year.

The deal is typical of the non-traded REIT’s bifurcated approach to market, Jack Cuneo, president and CEO of CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust, tells GlobeSt.com. Currently the REIT is now equally split between industrial/warehouse/distribution space and office, he says. “In terms of our tenancy we have a large number of companies that are in the technical, defense, medical, and scientific communities.”

The AOL acquisition fits with this profile, Cuneo continues. “It is a good asset and has a good cash flow and is consistent with the other properties that we have.” Other reasons he likes the deal, he says, are Northern Virginia’s ties to the federal government and defense contractor community and the growth of its local technology industry.

Like many non-traded REITs, CBRE Realty Trust has been steadily picking up assets for its portfolio--albeit perhaps not at the same pace as other, more aggressive non-traded REITs. Recent deals include its acquisition of a 134,000-square-foot, two-story class A corporate headquarters/R&D building in the Sorrento Mesa, CA submarket that is fully leased to Time Warner Cable through 2018, and a 335,400-square-foot industrial building in Rogers, MN. 

It also acquired two large bulk warehouses in Ohio and Indiana last year for $100 million as part of a joint venture with Duke Realty. Its first acquisition in the DC area was in 2008, when it acquired a two-building office portfolio in Chantilly, VA for $41.5 million from Advanced Realty.