A real estate investment firm out of Miami completed one of the largest office deals in the Hampton Roads market in 2022 with its purchase of the Greenbrier Towers in Chesapeake, Virginia. The deal provided a jolt of confidence to an uncertain office sector, which earned it a 2023 CoStar Impact Award for sale/acquisition of the year in Hampton Roads, as judged by a panel of local industry professionals.
SF Partners, through affiliate KAS Partners, paid nearly $18.95 million for the two-building office park at 860 to 870 Greenbrier Circle. The deal came out to about $110 per square foot. At the time of the sale, the complex was 78% leased to more than 30 tenants, including the headquarters of professional services companies T-Solutions and Goldbelt C6. Other tenants include La Petite Academy, Gryphon Technologies and 106.9 The Fox. Today, the park is roughly 86% leased, according to CoStar data.
Despite predictions of a slowdown in office sales as extended remote-work policies hindered demand for space — as well as early rumblings of a potential recession, inflation and rising interest rates — office investors remained active in Hampton Roads in 2022. In fact, since the beginning of 2020, just two quarters have registered fewer than 40 deals: the second quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to CoStar data. Office vacancies have ticked up slightly since reaching 10-year lows in late 2019, though a thin construction pipeline has helped keep rent growth positive.
SF Partners secured $13.5 million through Citi Real Estate Funding for its purchase of the Greenbrier Towers buildings. The deal was the second in the Hampton Roads area for the company after it bought two buildings within the Lake Wright Executive Center in Norfolk in 2019 for $24.9 million.
About the project: The nearly identical Greenbrier Tower I and II buildings were constructed in the mid-1980s off Interstate 64 and about two miles north of the nearly 900,000-square-foot Greenbrier Mall. The Class A, six-story buildings together total 171,762 square feet.
What the judges said: "A large office sale/acquisition post-pandemic is much more impactful in today's market than a residential trade," said Bobby Beasley III, a vice president of industrial sales and leasing at Harvey Lindsay Commercial Real Estate. "The current occupancy rate within that project illustrates the challenge a buyer had to retain financing."
They made it happen: Eric Robison and Bo McKown with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s capital markets group represented the seller in this transaction.