Boosalis Properties: Amazon's impact on Northern VA commercial real estate

Brokerage firm for over 40 years provides insight on current trends in Virginia's Commercial Real Estate Market.

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Mar 26, 2019, 09:00 ET

WOODBRIDGE, Va., March 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- We have seen an influx of out of state buyers pursuing deals in the local Northern VA market. Listings that had been sitting on the market for several months all of a sudden are picking up steam and have multiple buyers chasing them down.

For example, in November 2018 our team was representing a buyer for a retail center in Arlington VA. Before we were able to submit our clients offer, Amazon announced the plans to expand into Crystal City, VA. What went from a conventional negotiation then turned into a hard-ball bidding process with multiple buyers. The property went on to sell well above asking price. We've started seeing this trend duplicate over the last several months.

With Arlington County and Fairfax County looking to absorb around 49% of the future Amazon employees (Source: Stephen Fuller George Mason University), it creates many additional opportunities for outlying counties like Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania. More specifically North Woodbridge, VA and Fredericksburg, VA.

The majority of our commercial real estate investors are gravitating towards neighborhoods along the VRE metro stations. They anticipate that this will be where future Amazon employees will call home.

Local supervisors are working hard at designating high density construction to sustain the population growth that's heading our way. Developers are excited about the opportunities close to transit VRE/Metro stations. It makes it easier for residents to travel in and out of Crystal City/DC without having to fight through traffic every day. Counties like Prince William just passed a small area plan for North Woodbridge. This paves the way for several million square feet of mixed-use development right in front of the Woodbridge VRE station.

We've even seen areas toward Fredericksburg gearing up for the future. The Fredericksburg VRE station brings thousands of employees toward DC every day. VDOT has even begun expanding HOV lanes south, on the I95 corridor, with expected completion by 2022. County and City records show several thousand multi-family units being delivered over the next 2-3 years. With all this growth and expansion into Fredericksburg, the city is evidently included as part of Northern Virginia.

With all of these areas gearing up towards the future, we believe there will be continued development of retail, multi-family and mixed-use projects being delivered over the next 10+ years.

Our commercial real estate firm has been in this market for over 40 years and are continuing to look forward to the future.

Boosalis Properties, George Boosalis (President)
BoosalisProperties.com 703-494-7691

SOURCE Boosalis Properties