The Westwood Trail office and warehouse is the largest of three new warehouses in the works at the Dabney Center. Brandywine Realty Trust and prepared by Architects Dayton Thompson and Associates.
After sitting on 22 acres in Henrico County for 16 years, a large REIT has put plans in motion for new warehouses.
Pennsylvania-based Brandywine Realty Trust turned in plans to add three buildings and 150,000 square feet of industrial space to the Dabney Road area. The sites are ready to develop, said Brandywine Vice President of Development Leon Shadowen.
Now the company is looking for tenants to fill the warehouses.
“We don’t have a lead tenant yet, so we don’t have a firm timeline thus far,” Shadowen said. “We’re trying to position ourselves so that if were fortunate enough to have a tenant come along – that is, interested in that area – we will be ready for them.”
The new warehouses will add to Brandywine’s Dabney Center, a portfolio of 14 industrial buildings and undeveloped land the company bought for about $50 million in 1998.
Plans call for two new buildings along Dabney Road named Dabney XII and Dabney XIV and a third, larger warehouse on Westwood Trail. The first two buildings will total 45,000 and 43,000 square feet, adding to a cluster of 14 multi-tenant industrial properties in Brandywine’s Dabney Center.
Dabney XII and XIV will be similar to Brandywine’s existing flex buildings, offering light-use industrial warehouses with front-of-house office and showroom space.
The third building is a 70,000-square-foot warehouse that will sit just east of Dabney Center at the intersection of Westwood Trail and CSX Road. That building will be a bit of a break away from Brandywine’s current Dabney Center holdings.
“A lot of the buildings in Dabney have showrooms, but the Westwood Center Building would be more distribution – higher ceilings and bigger bays,” Shadowen said.
The three new warehouses will be Brandywine’s first developments in the Dabney Road area and the first building they’ve constructed in Richmond since adding Three Paragon Place in 2006.
Shadowen said an improving economy and low vacancies at Dabney made now the right time to expand. Brandywine’s current Dabney Road holdings total 641,000 square feet. The company reported that space is 99 percent occupied.
Brandywine is currently marketing space at Dabney between $7 and $9 per square foot. Shadowen said the company plans to lease the two new Dabney Road buildings at the high end of that range, while the larger Westwood Trail warehouse will be closer to the $7 mark.
Brandywine will start construction of each building as soon as about half of the property is preleased, Shadowen said. The company has yet to work out a budget for the development.
JLL industrial broker Scott Keeton said the Dabney Road area is has a single-digit vacancy rates for its stock of mainly multi-tenant, flex-space real estate. He added that this will be the first new product added to the area in several years.
“I’m not surprised that they’re looking into developing more product – it’s a tried and true submarket,” he said. “If you look at the Richmond MSA, it’s almost in the bull’s-eye, so it’s very well-located with great highway access.”
The Westwood Trail office and warehouse is the largest of three new warehouses in the works at the Dabney Center. Brandywine Realty Trust and prepared by Architects Dayton Thompson and Associates.
After sitting on 22 acres in Henrico County for 16 years, a large REIT has put plans in motion for new warehouses.
Pennsylvania-based Brandywine Realty Trust turned in plans to add three buildings and 150,000 square feet of industrial space to the Dabney Road area. The sites are ready to develop, said Brandywine Vice President of Development Leon Shadowen.
Now the company is looking for tenants to fill the warehouses.
“We don’t have a lead tenant yet, so we don’t have a firm timeline thus far,” Shadowen said. “We’re trying to position ourselves so that if were fortunate enough to have a tenant come along – that is, interested in that area – we will be ready for them.”
The new warehouses will add to Brandywine’s Dabney Center, a portfolio of 14 industrial buildings and undeveloped land the company bought for about $50 million in 1998.
Plans call for two new buildings along Dabney Road named Dabney XII and Dabney XIV and a third, larger warehouse on Westwood Trail. The first two buildings will total 45,000 and 43,000 square feet, adding to a cluster of 14 multi-tenant industrial properties in Brandywine’s Dabney Center.
Dabney XII and XIV will be similar to Brandywine’s existing flex buildings, offering light-use industrial warehouses with front-of-house office and showroom space.
The third building is a 70,000-square-foot warehouse that will sit just east of Dabney Center at the intersection of Westwood Trail and CSX Road. That building will be a bit of a break away from Brandywine’s current Dabney Center holdings.
“A lot of the buildings in Dabney have showrooms, but the Westwood Center Building would be more distribution – higher ceilings and bigger bays,” Shadowen said.
The three new warehouses will be Brandywine’s first developments in the Dabney Road area and the first building they’ve constructed in Richmond since adding Three Paragon Place in 2006.
Shadowen said an improving economy and low vacancies at Dabney made now the right time to expand. Brandywine’s current Dabney Road holdings total 641,000 square feet. The company reported that space is 99 percent occupied.
Brandywine is currently marketing space at Dabney between $7 and $9 per square foot. Shadowen said the company plans to lease the two new Dabney Road buildings at the high end of that range, while the larger Westwood Trail warehouse will be closer to the $7 mark.
Brandywine will start construction of each building as soon as about half of the property is preleased, Shadowen said. The company has yet to work out a budget for the development.
JLL industrial broker Scott Keeton said the Dabney Road area is has a single-digit vacancy rates for its stock of mainly multi-tenant, flex-space real estate. He added that this will be the first new product added to the area in several years.
“I’m not surprised that they’re looking into developing more product – it’s a tried and true submarket,” he said. “If you look at the Richmond MSA, it’s almost in the bull’s-eye, so it’s very well-located with great highway access.”