WASHINGTON, DC-First Potomac Realty Trust has closed the $241.5 million sale of its industrial portfolio to Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII, exiting the space all together.

The portfolio consists of 23 institutional-quality properties totaling 4 million square feet. Sixteen of those properties, or 2.6 million square feet, are located in Southern Virginia and the remaining seven are located in the Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. submarkets. The properties acquired by Blackstone will be managed by IndCor Properties – Blackstone's national industrial portfolio company.

First Potomac also sold I-66 Commerce Center, a 236,000 square foot property in Haymarket, VA, to Corporate Office Properties Trust for $17.5 million, bringing the industrial portfolio's purchase price to $259 million.

The sale means First Potomac is now free to focus on the office asset class, CIO Nick Smith told GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview.

"That is one of the benefits of this decision – it really positions us to focus on what we have been doing for the last couple of years, which is invest in well-located office buildings."

The timing was right to put the properties on the market, he added.

"Frankly we have been pretty surprised by some of the prices people have been paying for industrial product. We wanted to take advantage of that. Also it is rare that a portfolio of this size comes to the market so that helped as well. In the end we were very pleased with the offer."

Instant Insights /

First Potomac Closes $242M Sale

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