Real Estate Journal | Office Space in Richmond Offers a Mixed Picture
Office Space in Richmond Offers a Mixed Picture
By Maura Webber Sadovi Special to The Wall Street Journal Online
While Virginia's capital city has been on the winning side of several recent corporate relocations, the area's commercial real-estate market remains mixed, as new construction has absorbed some of the demand in the office-leasing market.
Last week packaging group MeadWestvaco Corp. said it would move its headquarters into a permanent site in Richmond from Stamford, Conn., by the summer of 2008. That addition will give the Richmond region bragging rights to seven Fortune 500 company headquarters. It also gives Richmond the second-highest concentration of such corporate giants per million residents among the 54 major metro areas surveyed by Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based real-estate research firm. Richmond has six Fortune 500 companies per million residents, behind San Jose, Calif., which has just over seven per million people, PPR said.
"Richmond is now hitting its stride," said David H. Downs, a professor of real estate at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, noting that the area's still comparatively inexpensive real estate has put it on the radar screen of investors priced out of larger markets. Other relocations have included cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc., which completed its move from New York City in 2004, and is building a $300 million research facility downtown.
By Maura Webber Sadovi Special to The Wall Street Journal Online
While Virginia's capital city has been on the winning side of several recent corporate relocations, the area's commercial real-estate market remains mixed, as new construction has absorbed some of the demand in the office-leasing market.
Last week packaging group MeadWestvaco Corp. said it would move its headquarters into a permanent site in Richmond from Stamford, Conn., by the summer of 2008. That addition will give the Richmond region bragging rights to seven Fortune 500 company headquarters. It also gives Richmond the second-highest concentration of such corporate giants per million residents among the 54 major metro areas surveyed by Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based real-estate research firm. Richmond has six Fortune 500 companies per million residents, behind San Jose, Calif., which has just over seven per million people, PPR said.
"Richmond is now hitting its stride," said David H. Downs, a professor of real estate at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, noting that the area's still comparatively inexpensive real estate has put it on the radar screen of investors priced out of larger markets. Other relocations have included cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc., which completed its move from New York City in 2004, and is building a $300 million research facility downtown.
posted by Patrick Leblanc at 4:23 PM
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