Apr 25, 2025

Buchanan Partners recent bought a quintet of aging office buildings in the re-developable heart of Montgomery County’s life science corridor for $47 million.

The Bethesda-based real estate development and investment firm acquired the five offices — 608,000 square feet in all, across about 25 acres — on March 13, according to state-maintained deed records. The buildings are clustered just west of I-270, comprising the bulk of what a recently approved land use master plan calls an “opportunity site” for residential and retail redevelopment.

Buchanan plans to continue operating the buildings as office for the time being, while it evaluates long-term redevelopment plans, a person familiar with the deal who declined to be named told me. Four of the offices are about 70% leased and one is vacant.

Montgomery County’s Great Seneca Plan, which the County Council approved in 2024, flags the assemblage as a prime place for redevelopment as a “mixed-use cluster” (see color-shaded map at bottom). The properties sit within what the plan dubs the “Life Sciences Center,” described as “the county’s premier location for the life sciences and biohealth industries.” The plan envisions the area becoming a “complete community,” including jobs, diverse housing options, services and amenities.

On the map below, Buchanan’s acquisition includes several of the white- and brown-roofed buildings just east of Shady Grove Road and north of Research Boulevard.

The seller was Link Logistics Real Estate LLC, an industrial portfolio of investment giant Blackstone. Link appears to have picked up the properties as part of its 2022 acquisition of PS Business Parks Inc.

The five properties are 9201, 9211, 15300 and 15304 Corporate Blvd. and 2611 Research Blvd. Each is home to a four-story office building constructed in the 1980s or early 1990s, along with associated surface parking lots and above-grade garages, according to county property records.

Several adjacent or nearby parcels are home to apartment buildings constructed between 2015 and 2019.

Other Link properties have also seen or are envisioned for considerable re-development. Earlier this year, Link sold for $167 million a 411-unit apartment community in Tysons, which PS Business Parks and Kettler Inc. had earlier developed as part of the larger mixed-use transformation of the Westpark Business Park. Around the same time, Link advanced plans to redevelop a big flex industrial park it owns in Merrifield.