BALTIMORE-H&S Properties Development Corp. secured a permanent $180-million loan for Legg Mason Tower, a 24-story, 612,613-square foot office building here, located at 100 International Dr. Located in the heart of Baltimore in the city’s Harbor East submarket, the building is an iconic fixture. Nonetheless the loan size is somewhat eyebrow-raising: it is rare that loans exceed the $50-million to $60-million mark in this market.

The lenders were Morgan Stanley and Bank of America and the 15-year loan, which is replacing construction financing, is structured along fairly vanilla lines, Joe Donato of CBRE’s Capital Markets team in Washington, DC, tells GlobeSt.com. CBRE secured the fixed-rate financing. Because of the asset, sponsor and location of the tower, “this was a hotly contested, very competitive transaction.”

The tower, which serves as the world headquarters for asset management firm Legg Mason, was constructed in 2009 and designed with an architecturally distinct exterior of blue-tinted glass. The project base building is LEED Silver. Legg Mason’s office finishes are LEED Gold. It located in Harbor East, a 70-acre master-planned, mixed-use waterfront project along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Increasingly, Baltimore is becoming a viable alternative to office investment for buyers that are finding DC’s prices too rich, Donato agrees. That, however, is not a factor in this particular transaction, which at bottom is a standard permanent construction refinance. The deal, though, will further highlight Baltimore’s growing ascendency in the Mid-Atlantic office market, he adds.