Howard Hughes Corp. Acquires Two Office Buildings in Downtown Columbia for $38.8M

COLUMBIA, MD. — The Howard Hughes Corp. has acquired two office buildings in downtown Columbia for a combined $38.8 million. The firm purchased The American City Building, which is adjacent to a Whole Foods Market on Little Patuxent Parkway, for $16.5 million and One Mall North, a fully leased, four-story office building, for $22.3 million. Both purchases were underwritten in view of their future development potential. Howard Hughes plans to demolish the mostly vacant American City Building to make way for a mixed-use development with multifamily, retail and restaurant components. The company hasn’t unveiled plans for One Mall North, but the site is zoned for retail, office or multifamily use of up to nine stories. The redevelopment opportunity for these sites will aid in the city’s goal to revamp downtown Columbia. The Howard County government recently approved a $90 million tax increment financing (TIF) to fund public infrastructure improvements and a new parking garage in downtown Columbia’s Merriweather District, a 5 million-square-foot mixed-use development. Currently downtown Columbia has nearly 14 million square feet of vertical entitlements, including the Merriweather District.