The lease will give First Potomac Realty the necessary time to decide how, or if, it will reposition the property, which is currently a quasi warehouse with a little flex, Skip Dawson, EVP and COO of First Potomac, tells GlobeSt.com. "It has some office on it too, but for a 34-acre parcel inside the Beltway we don't think that this is its highest and best use."
The lease with Smoot, he says, give the company the flexibility for longer term planning while having an income stream in place. Plaza 500 is consists of two, single-story buildings, totaling approximately 504,000 sf. Plaza 500 houses 15 tenants all together and is currently 100% leased.
First Potomac has either renewed on signed on new tenants in a number of properties over the last two quarters. Siemens, for instance, inked a lease to occupy a full building at the firm's Ammendale Commerce Center property. Also last month GSA leased 44,000 sf for the US Coast Guard--a deal that included an extension of 22,000 sf and a 22,000-sf expansion, in First Potomac's Crossways I property in Crossways Commerce Center business park in Chesapeake, VA. "We have made a concerted effort over the last nine to 12 months to focus on forward looking renewals," Dawson says. The firm had been working on the Smoot Lumber deal for the last nine months, he adds.
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