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Merritt Properties Plots Aberdeen Office Park (From the Baltimore Business Journal)

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Baltimore Business Journal
Friday, December 11, 2009
by Ryan Sharrow, Staff
 

Merritt Properties LLC is joining the Aberdeen development race.

The Baltimore developer is plotting a 254,000-square-foot office park off Route 22 between Interstate 95 and Aberdeen Proving Ground aimed at capturing defense contractors relocating to Harford County. Merritt plans to start the first of three buildings at the nearly $60 million Aberdeen Corporate Park in spring 2010.

The initial 90,000-square-foot building will be built without any lease commitments, a rare move for Merritt.

“There’s not many opportunities for spec development in the history of our company,” said Louis P. Boeri Jr., who handles leasing for the 42-year-old firm. “We think it’s at ground zero at the best location in Aberdeen.”

The entire project is expected to take two to three years to complete. Merritt plans to close on its purchase of the 35-acre site from the Chesapeake Bank of Maryland in March. Boeri declined to disclose how much Merritt will pay for the property. The land neighbors a Target, Home Depot and Panera Bread.

The project marks Merritt’s Aberdeen debut. The company’s only other Harford County property is industrial space in Joppa. Merritt will also join its biggest competitors, Corporate Office Properties Trust and St. John Properties Inc., in building new business parks in Aberdeen.

Columbia’s COPT is behind a nearly 800,000-square-foot business park at the foot of APG, while St. John Properties plans to build a 2 million-square-foot park at the military complex. More than 8,000 government workers are expected to move to Harford County from northern New Jersey as part of the Base Realignment and Closure act, or BRAC. More than 16,000 defense contractors are expected to relocate.

James C. Richardson, Harford County’s economic development director, called Merritt’s project “critical” and said it will give companies more options when relocating. Richardson estimates Aberdeen will need 2 million square feet of space by 2011 and the county will need additional projects to meet the goal. Work on around a third of that needed space has started, he said.

L-3 Communications, Raytheon Co. and CACI are among the first contractors to take space in Harford. The demand will intensify as the military’s September 2011 move date nears. And real experts say it was only a matter of time before Merritt, with a portfolio of nearly 15 million square feet of space, found its spot in Aberdeen.

“Everybody’s trying to find a piece,” said Tom Mottley, an owner at RKS Realty Inc., a commercial real estate brokerage specializing in Harford County. “I don’t think anybody who builds on spec will have a problem.”

Merritt hopes to achieve a U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED gold rating for the project. Boeri declined to disclose how much Merritt will charge for rent, but said it will be comparable to the current asking rates in the area.

The average rental rate in Harford County is $24, according to MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Service’s third-quarter market report. Merritt will not put a cap on how much space a company can take at the project, Boeri added.

The site will also have space for two 6,000-square-foot restaurants.