CoStar Group The Law Offices of Gary M. Gilbert & Associates signed a 10-year lease for 15,440 square feet in the Colonnade at Station Square, which is one block from the Silver Spring Metrorail station.

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Greenfield Partners of South Norwalk, Conn., has been busy buying up warehouses and office space in the Washington-Baltimore corridor, with deals of $100 million announced in recent weeks, state records show.

The company paid $80.75 million for the AMB/Prologis portfolio in three Columbia office parks, including assumption of a $58 million mortgage, according to state records.

Prologis of San Francisco, the world’s largest industrial property owner, has been unwinding from holdings it acquired last year when it merged with AMB Properties.

In the Columbia deals, it sold off 20 buildings, according to broker Cassidy & Turley. Cassidy said it arranged $70.5 million in financing for Greenfield to make its Prologis acquisition, as well as a separate deal to buy five properties in White Marsh from Corporate Office Properties Trust of Columbia for $19.2 million.

“We continue to see the banks aggressively pricing the larger portfolio transactions,” Cassidy’s John Campanella said in a news release. “We expect this trend to continue through 2012 with a focus on strong sponsors.”

The deal included more than 800,000 square feet of space in Howard and Baltimore counties. The 588,009-square-foot Columbia portfolio includes buildings in Columbia Gateway Business Park, Columbia Business Center and Oakland Ridge. Combined, the Columbia properties were 93 percent leased.

“This sale is a continuation of public [real estate investment trusts] shedding non-core assets and focusing on growing and maintaining the properties that align with their corporate strategy,” Cassidy’s Jonathan Carpenter said in a statement. “These properties were highly finished and, in many cases, nearly 100 [percent] office, which is different than the typical product owned by Prologis.”

In a separate deal, SK Realty Management, a New York investor, bought three Prologis warehouses in the Baltimore market for $43.6 million, according to state records. The three industrial buildings total 769,498 square feet. The deal included a pair of buildings on Hickory Drive in Aberdeen for $39.5 million and a Dundalk building for $4.1 million.

The properties were fully leased at the time of sale, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield.

COPT expands sell-off to St. Mary’s County

Corporate Office Properties Trust also announced it is expanding its sales offerings by putting six buildings in St. Mary’s County on the market.

The Columbia firm reported a quarterly loss of $87.2 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a $16.7 million profit for the same period in 2010.

The company added the Lexington Park properties to its list of non-core assets as it focuses attention on its primary market of federal agencies and military intelligence contractors.

The company remains committed to its Expedition and Exploration Office Parks, which sit at the main entrance to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. But it is trying to sell six buildings “further away from the mothership,” outgoing CEO Randall M. Griffin said during an earnings conference call.

“We’re keeping the highest-quality assets and trying to sell off the lowest-quality assets,” he said.

The firm acquired the Wildewood Professional and Technology Park 6 miles north of the naval base in 2005 as part of a St. Mary’s County portfolio that cost $51.5 million.

Griffin pointed to its Patuxent River properties as an example of the success that the company expects in the long run in development related to the expansion of Army bases in Aberdeen and at Fort Meade. Leasing is slower than expected due to federal budget gridlock, the effects of the Great Recession and contractor reluctance to move employees around in a bad housing market.

But Griffin noted the explosion of apartment building deals and construction in those markets as signs that the expected growth in office demand soon will follow.

In the meantime, the company’s portfolio was only 88.2 percent leased at the end of 2011, and it put four buildings into service that previously were under construction or redevelopment and were only 37 percent leased.

To cope with reduced earnings, the company has sold $95.9 million of buildings and adjacent land with about 1.15 million square feet of space under its strategic plan to sell off $512 million worth of non-core properties. The firm also has cut its quarterly dividend by one-third percent to 27.5 cents per share.

Whole Foods project in Riverdale Park OK’d

A proposed 36-acre, mixed-use town center anchored by a Whole Foods Market grocery in Riverdale Park has won approval from the Prince George’s County Planning Board.

The forested vacant land is slated for a $226 million retail and residential center along U.S. Route 1 to the west, bordering the CSX railroad to the east and is set to break ground by January 2014. The developer, Calvert Tract of Washington, D.C., plans to open the county’s first Whole Foods Market in the center by January 2015.

The completed center on the Cafritz Property, named after property owner Jane Cafritz, will include 200,000 square feet of retail space and 995 residential units comprising townhomes, apartments and senior housing.

Planning Board members unanimously approved the project last week after the Cafritz development team agreed to the early construction of a vehicular bridge over the CSX tracks to help mitigate traffic. Cafritz also will seek to have CSX implement a “quiet zone” in that area, which would prevent trains from blowing horns when passing. The developer also promised to extend Maryland Avenue, which comes to a dead end just south of the property to serve as an access point for the center, and to preserve certain trees on the property.

Brad Frome, chief of staff to Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), said the project will boost economic development and attract new visitors to Prince George’s County.

“This will serve as a positive development for the immediate area and Prince George’s County as a whole, which has previously suffered from a lack of quality retail,” he said.

John Tabori, the mayor of University Park, which borders the Cafritz property, said he is pleased with the commissioner’s decision to support each of the conditions to the property.

“This engaged citizens in a way that is unprecedented,” he said. “Does everybody agree? No. There are adamant opposers in my community and I understand that and respect that, but I chose to engage in the negotiations rather than to say a flat-out no.”

The land in Riverdale Park is zoned primarily for residential permitting, or R55 zone, but will change to a mixed-use, town center zone, or MUTC zone, pending County Council approval.

University releases details of revived College Park plan

University of Maryland officials have released the latest plans for the long-stalled east campus development plan in College Park and outlined efforts to move ahead with the public-private project anchored by a Birchmere music hall.

The plan to spark development that would help revitalize the College Park Route 1 corridor has been in discussion for at least a decade but has been frozen since developer Foulger-Pratt of Rockville pulled out of the project in 2009. Now the Cordish Cos. of Baltimore is expected to break ground in the spring of 2013 on the 38-acre project, which would include a luxury hotel, graduate student housing complexes and upscale restaurants.

The first development phase will include building a hotel with about 265 beds and 20,000 to 25,000 square feet of conference space. The General Assembly has approved a five-year plan to fund the first stage with $25 million.

Eight-screen movie palace coming to Rockville

Federal Realty Investment Trust announced the execution of a 44,000-square-foot lease with iPic Entertainment for an eight-screen movie theater and dining venue at Pike & Rose, the company’s mixed-use complex under development in Rockville.

The theater will feature all-reserved premium seating with reclining chairs, pillows and blankets, popcorn and in-cinema service for the first 20 minutes of a movie, according to a statement by the Rockville company. IPic also will offer its signature restaurant, Tansy, and Salt, a bar with an extensive beverage selection and wine tower.

IPic has theaters in Arizona, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington and Texas.

“IPic's approach to creating a best in class guest experience is what Federal Realty strives to do with each of our properties,” Don Wood, president and CEO of Federal Realty, said in a news release.

Pike & Rose is replacing a strip mall at the prime intersection of Montrose Parkway and Rockville Pike. When completed, it will offer 420,000 square feet of retail space, 1.1 million square feet of build-to-suit office space, and as many as 1,600 residential units.

Construction on the iPic building is expected to begin in the fall and open with the first phase of the Pike & Rose development in 2014.

Law firm expanding in Silver Spring

The Law Offices of Gary M. Gilbert & Associates is moving in May into a 15,440-square-foot space it’s leasing at 1100 Wayne Ave. in downtown Silver Spring to accommodate the planned growth of its work force.

The firm signed a 10-year lease, negotiated by Ezra Co. of Washington, D.C., in the 162,834-square-foot, 12-story building owned by Moore & Associates of Bethesda, according to its statement. Known as the Colonnade at Station Square, the building is one block from the Silver Spring Metrorail station.

The firm, which Gilbert established in 2005 with one lawyer, now has 19 lawyers, with a total work force of 41, which it expects to grow by 50 percent. The firm now is in 10,000 square feet at 8401 Colesville Road in Silver Spring and also has a satellite office in Denver.

“The amount of windowed offices for our attorneys and the well-lit environment throughout the entire workspace appealed to us,” Gilbert said of the new space. “I think it's a good fit for us, and a good fit for the landlord.”

The firm focuses on employment law, especially federal-government employees. It represents employees in claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation, reasonable accommodation, disability retirement, family medical leave and disciplinary actions.

Scheer Partners wins leasing assignment for Adventist building

Adventist HealthCare of Rockville has hired Scheer Partners, also of Rockville, to market a 97,000-square-foot medical-office building at 19735 Germantown Road.

The property, near Germantown Town Center, has several small spaces as well as 27,000 square feet of shell space on the third floor that can be broken into smaller spaces suitable for a larger physicians’ practice or health-care clinic.

Staff Writer Daniel J. Gross contributed to this report.

Commercial real estate news items may be mailed to Robert Rand, The Business Gazette, 9030 Comprint Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20877; emailed to rrand@gazette.net; or faxed to 301-670-7183.