The Challenge
Our client acquired a 22-building, 1.3 million square foot portfolio of office and flex product situated in five distinct submarkets in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The overall Hampton Roads market was still extremely soft and heavily impacted by reduced government spending. The portfolio had a weighted average lease term of only 2.8 years with rents approximately 25% below the peak levels of 2007. Additionally, the portfolio was heavily weighted in occupancy exposed to the federal government and defense industry. The portfolio was set up to lose 10% in occupancy from known vacates within eight months and drop to 82%.had taken over.
Our Solutions
- On-boarded entire leasing and management staff and strategically made adjustments and new hires where additional talent was needed.
- Established third party leasing engagements on several select assets where we saw the need and opportunity.
- Developed a strategy to relocate and expand tenants who were intending to vacate due to additional space needs.
- Identified a large number of undesirable vacancies and implemented an aggressive schedule of make-ready improvements to those suites and the common areas serving them.
- Established personal relationships with every brokerage firm and the top 30 brokers.
- Held the largest and most productive broker entertainment event the market has seen in the last ten years.
The Results
- 37% Increase To weighted average lease term in first 6 months after execution of several new lease transactions
- 200 Basis Points increase to projected Year 1 cash-on-cash returns
- 50 Basis Points increase to indicative cap rate on purchase price
- 300 Basis Points better than initial underwriting after mitigating occupancy drop-over and bottoming out
- Diversified exposure of rent roll to the government and defense industries by seeking out and executing multiple
long-term leases in the financial services and medical industries.
