Southern California Office Real Estate Blog

BUY WATERGATE – A INFAMOUS NIXON-ERA COMMERCIAL LANDMARK

March 29, 2009 on 12:12 am | In Fascinating Information, Government, Historic Properties, Investment Opportunities, Office Fodder, Uncategorized, Winning Properties |

BUY WATERGATE – A INFAMOUS NIXON-ERA COMMERCIAL LANDMARK

By Jodi Summers

Politicos will be intrigued to learn that the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. is for sale. To rattle your memory, the Watergate is famous for its role in the downfall of former president Richard Nixon, leading to his resignation.

Being offered is a 10-acre, mixed-use development is comprised of three luxury residential towers, two class-A office buildings, a 200-room hotel and a parking garage. The assets have been tentatively valued at north of $100 million.

What you get is 2600 Virginia Ave. - a 198,538-square-foot office building; 2500 Virginia Ave. - a 66,034-square-foot retail venue; and a 314-space underground parking facility.

The complex has an occupancy rate that averages in the low 90s, with the office occupied at around 96%. Office tenants include the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, Saul Ewing, the Washington Opera and PNC Bank. The US Postal Service, CVS Pharmacy and Safeway supermarket are among the retail tenants.

The property’s financing is assumable. With a term that ends October 2015, it has an initial blended rate of 5.43%.

The Watergate scandals were a series of American political scandals during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon’s closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974. The scandals began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. The scandal has been immortalized with the trend of adding ‘gate’ to the phrases associated with scandals.

Info courtesy of:

http://www.globest.com/news/1366_1366/washington/177425-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

http://ilikedginger.net/gtisongs/boyfriends/elvis_presley_and_richard_nixon.jpg

http://www.memphisflyer.com/binary/dd83/RichardNixonFarewell.jpg

3 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Commercial property sales activity has increased since the start of the year, but the ratio of newly-listed properties to closed sales has increased even more.

The investment sales data from Real Capital Analytics clearly quantifies the general sense that it has become more of a buyer’s market and the trend shows no sign of reversing itself.

Roughly $2.7 billion worth of commercial properties traded hands in February, up from about $800 million in January, according to the New York research firm, which monitors transactions of at least $5 million. Meanwhile, the ratio of new offerings to closed sales increased to about 5-to-1 in February from 4-to-1 in January, and slightly more than 2-to-1 in December.

Comment by CRE News — March 30, 2009 #
Roughly $2.7 billion worth of commercial properties traded hands in February, up from about $800 million in January, according to the New York research firm, which monitors transactions of at least $5 million. Meanwhile, the ratio of new offerings to closed sales increased to about 5-to-1 in February from 4-to-1 in January, and slightly more than 2-to-1 in December.

The increased supply of offerings, as evidenced by the greater offerings-to-closed sales ratio, is exerting downward pressure on prices as the Moody’s/Real Commercial Property Price Indices, which are based on Real Capital data, registered a 5.5 percent decline in January, their largest monthly decline since 2000.

That downward pressure on prices “is likely to only worsen over the near term,” according to Real Capital.

It noted that an increasing number of sellers could be viewed as distressed because of their inability to get financing for properties that have maturing debt.

Real Capital said that $11 billion of the properties being offered are in or near trouble because of an upcoming mortgage maturity, default, foreclosure or bankruptcy by their ownership groups.

Comment by CRE News — April 1, 2009 #
At least six hotel chains are negotiating to buy the shuttered Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., according to PB Capital, which is offering the landmark property for sale as part of foreclosure proceedings. PB, which holds a $40 million loan against the 251-room hotel, said the potential buyers are assessing how much it would cost to restore the property. A venture of Monument Realty and Lehman Brothers Holdings, which acquired the property in 2004 for $55 million, defaulted on the debt in July. PB made a
$25 million credit bid for the Watergate after an auction in July failed to attract acceptable offers.

Comment by CRE News — August 26, 2009 #