Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE:
OFC), a specialty office real estate investment trust, preleased 315,000 square feet of
office space to an undisclosed tenant in Ashburn, VA. COPT plans to construct two shell buildings for the company on land it acquired at Ashburn Crossing business park.
The REIT anticipates spending a total of $42 million on the project, which includes the remaining land on which COPT can build one additional structure.
The developer will break ground on COPT DC-8, a 200,000-square-foot
office building, this quarter and COPT DC-9, a 115,000-square-foot property, no later than the summer of next year.
The tenant, a subsidiary of an investment-grade Fortune 500 company, will move into the first building by the fourth quarter of 2013 and the second property by early 2015.