FAIRFAX, VA-Grosvenor Americas has acquired a 120,000 square foot medical office building in the Merrifield submarket for approximately $43 million. The property, located at 3023 Hanmaker Ct., includes a three-story parking garage and adjacent land entitled for the development of a second 120,000-square foot building. The seller was The Long Cos., the Middleburg, VA-based developer of the building. The property delivered in 2009 and is now 75% leased to medical service providers led by Children’s National Medical Center.

The fact that it is a medical office building carried great weight with Grosvenor. It is also close to INOVA Fairfax, noted Scott Brody, VP of Investments and general manager of Grosvenor Americas’ Washington, DC office. It was the only new medical office building to be built in this submarket in the last decade, he said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to leasing up the balance of the building’s space to additional medical practitioners whose specialties complement those of our existing tenants.”

Another--albeit much smaller--sale also occurred in the Northern Virginia market around the same time. But while the Grosvenor deal could be described as a value-add sale, although in a highly supply constrained category, this other transaction is pure commercial real estate bread-and-butter. It is a fully leased building at 4010 University Dr., acquired by a private investor because the building offered better returns than other investments. The 19,000-square foot property, The Joshua Coffer Gunnell Building, was acquired for $4.12 million from Extra Billy Smith Partnership. The price paid generated a 7.5% leveraged return, fully sheltered for at least the next six years, according to Bill Prutting Sr., First Vice President at CBRE’s Washington, DC, office, “something even tax-free municipal bonds cannot match.” “In addition, when you include loan amortization and asset appreciation over time, commercial real estate certainly offers a compelling alternative source for investment income.” It was built in 1982 and is primarily leased to law and accounting firms. Prutting represented the seller in the transaction.