Fairfax Center continues to attract tenants

Virginia Business
March 2007

Fairfax Center is located at the intersection of several major roads: Route 50, Route 29, Interstate 66 and the Fairfax County Parkway. With nearly 6.6 million square feet, it is home to information technology companies, defense contractors and corporate clients, including CGI, IBM, Northrop Grumman and the Peterson Cos.

Many clients renewed leases at the end of 2006. The year also brought the opening of the center’s first new speculative office building since 2002. Bridgewater Corporate Center, at 11325 Random Hills Road, offers 198,062 square feet of space.

Meanwhile, the center continues to attract investors. The Peterson Cos. recently sold the Fair Lakes office building it had owned since the 1980s to San Francisco-based Shorenstein Cos. for $370 million. That translates into about $284 per square foot for the 1.3-million-square-foot portfolio.

While rental rates are lower at Fairfax Center than for buildings inside the Beltway, they are creeping up. Class A office space is going for an average of $29.46 per square foot while class B space rents for $22.66 per square foot, according to the metropolitan Washington, D.C., office of GVA Advantis. “It’s one of the healthier markets,” says Tonya Ginter, GVA’s director of research, “and the rates are a little lower compared to Tysons Corner or a Reston location.”