WRIT Acquires Medical Office for $20M

ROCKVILLE, MD-Washington Real Estate Investment Trust is acquiring a medical office building in Leesburg, VA for $19.9 million. The 87,400 square foot property just delivered across the street from the Inova Loudoun Hospital at the intersection of Riverside Parkway and Lansdowne Blvd. WRIT did not return a call to GlobeSt.com in time for publication.

WRIT said it would buy the four-story property last April when development got underway, using cash and its line of credit to fund the purchase. Now that it’s delivered, it is projecting an 8% to 8.5% stabilized return. Indeed, medical office buildings--especially owner occupied properties--are one of the few real estate assets that are still performing well and still able to get financing with little difficulty.

With this purchase has been a year in the making, WRIT has also been making strategic sales of other properties. It sold a 35,000-square-foot office building in Rockville recently for $3.3 million, netting the REIT a book gain of $1 million. In July, it sold 100 Industrial Park for $10.54 million in Elkridge, MD.

However it was in 2006 and 2007 when WRIT loaded up on medical assets, acquiring the four-building Shady Grove/Plumtree Medical Portfolio, for $67 million, in Rockville; a class A medical office building at 2440 M St. in the District for $50 million; and the Woodholme Medical Office Building and Woodholme Center for $49 million, also in Rockville. It also acquired a small parcel of land near its Alexandria Professional Center, which it purchased in 2006 for $26.9 million. Zoning would allow WRIT to develop 70,000 square feet of office space on the site.