GSA-Heavy Bethesda Building Receives $47 Million in Financing
By Carl Gaines October 9, 2012 3:37 pm
reprintsCushman & Wakefield (CWK) Equity, Debt & Structured Finance has arranged $47 million in financing for the Atrium at Rock Spring Park, a 237,000-square-foot office building located at 10401 Fernwood Road in Bethesda, Maryland.
Meritage Properties owns the building in a joint venture with GTIS Partners. The two bought it from Hines in 2006 for $57 million, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. Previous financing on the building included a $20.5 million first mortgage from Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co.
![10401 Fernwood Road Signature_lres_web 10401 fernwood road signature lres web GSA Heavy Bethesda Building Receives $47 Million in Financing](http://observer-media.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2012/10/10401-fernwood-road-signature_lres_web.jpg)
The lender on this current piece of financing, a major domestic commercial bank, wasn’t disclosed.
Since buying the building, the JV partners have increased its occupancy rate from 66 percent to 100 percent following a repositioning that included the renovation of 57,000 square feet of then vacant space on the first floor. Current tenants there include the National Institutes of Health, which recently announced that it would be expanding its leased space there, and Constella Group.
“The repositioning strategy at ‘The Atrium’ exceeded even our most optimistic expectations,” said Andrew Nathan, CEO of Meritage Properties. “The substantial improvements we made at the property have paid outstanding dividends.”
The Cushman & Wakefield Equity, Debt & Structured Finance team on the deal included Steven Kohn, president of the group, and Alex Hernandez in New York. Steve Gichner and Eric Berkman from C&W’s Washington, D.C. Capital Markets team also worked on arranging the financing, as did Gideon Gil, from the Washington, D.C. office of Cushman & Wakefield Equity, Debt & Structured Finance.
cgaines@observer.com