A Fort Washington Flex Building Just Sold for 6 Times What Its Owner Paid
Alliance HP bought 500 Virginia Drive for $8.1 million, renovated it, and sold the 325,000 square foot building to a New York and Connecticut joint venture for $50.5 million.
Westport Capital Partners, out of Connecticut, and Ajax Partners, out of New York, paid $50.5 million for 500 Virginia Drive in Fort Washington, a 325,000 square foot flex industrial building with 1,397 parking spaces, Glenside Local reported, citing the Philadelphia Business Journal. The sellers, Alliance HP of Conshohocken, bought the building in 2019 for $8.1 million, according to Commercial Real Estate Direct, and renovated it in 2022. Tenants in the building include Avo Photonics and Honeywell.
That's better than six times the purchase price in seven years. Alliance HP bought an underpriced, underleased building, put money into a 2022 renovation, and sold it to two out-of-state joint-venture buyers willing to pay $155 a square foot for it.
If you're holding flex or industrial product in Montgomery County that hasn't been touched since the last renovation cycle, this trade is the new reference point for what a repositioned building can command. The gap between what an unrenovated building trades for and what a renovated one trades for just got a lot more expensive to ignore.
Why it matters
A Fort Washington flex building just traded at six times its 2019 purchase price after a renovation. That's the new benchmark for what repositioning an older Montgomery County industrial building is worth.
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