HERNDON, VA-Corporate Office Property Trust, after months of selling off assets, has now acquired one: The REIT has purchased a 202,000-square-foot property here for $49.6 million. True to its mission of focusing on government and government contractor clients, the building is 99% occupied by a tenant in the Defense information-technology industry. The five-story building is located at 13857 McLearen Rd., and is known as the McLearen Center.

"We're pleased with our ability to execute the disposition of non-strategic assets and to recycle some of the proceeds into McLearen Center, a highly strategic property,” says Roger A. Waesche Jr., president and CEO of COPT, in a prepared statement. He will provide more details about the acquisition during its second quarter conference call, scheduled for July 26th.

COPT has disposed of 24 operating properties as well as the Fort Ritchie development project over the last several months. Proceeds from these sales have been approximately $179 million. These properties were roughly 1.5 million square feet in total and 83.8% occupied at the time of the sale.

Year-to-date through July 24, 2012, COPT has sold a total of $317 million of properties and adjacent land. These sales contained approximately 2.3 million operational square feet and 162 leases that were 83.2% leased at the time of sale, realizing net proceeds of $253 million.

COPT began recycling its assets in earnest in April 2011 when it announced its Strategic Reallocation Plan. Since then it has disposed of $394 million worth of properties.