Highwoods (HIW) Inks Build-to-Suit Deal With Virginia Urology

Highwoods Properties, Inc. (NYSE:HIW) announced signing of a long-term build-to-suit lease with Virginia Urology. The development would come up in Richmond's Stony Point submarket, one of the city's BBDs (Best Business Districts) and hence, fits the company’s strategy of expansion in the BBDs.

Particularly, Highwoods would develop an 87,000-square foot, three-story building for Virginia Urology, which would function as the latter's headquarters and medical facility (MOB) in Richmond's Stony Point submarket. The company expects to conclude this development by the end of third-quarter 2018. Its estimated investment for this fully pre-leased development project is $29 million, including the company-owned land’s value.

Highwoods has been making concerted efforts to fortify its footprint in high-growth markets through premium asset acquisitions and developments. The company is currently focused on BBD office properties through construction activities and buyouts.

Presently, there are four buildings in Stony Point under Highwoods’ ownership. These buildings comprise a total of 460,000 square feet of space and are 96% occupied on average. In fact, Highwoods Stony Point portfolio – being situated near to the 669,000 square foot Stony Point Fashion Park mall – is expected to draw much attention.

Finally, conferring this build-to-suit project in Richmond to Highwoods reflects the strong demand for the company’s properties and expertise in developments. Together with this development project, the company currently boasts of a development pipeline of 1.7 million square feet. Investment for this pipeline is around $520 million and it has already received a solid attention from tenants, with over 70% being already pre-leased.

Going forward, a diversified portfolio with several top-notch tenants and the presence of high-quality office assets in BBDs of the core markets bode well for the company’s growth. Yet, stiff competition and any hike in interest rate remain concerns.

Highwoods currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the REIT industry is InfraREIT, Inc. (NYSE:HIFR) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Investors can also consider stocks like DuPont (NYSE:DD) Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT) and HCP Inc. (NYSE:HCP) , both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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