SEEING THE LIGHT

May 3, 2012 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

Yesterday, MacKenzie Commercial's Jon Di Virgilio and Megan Roy told us that when they started leasing Caves Valley Partners'1111 Light St, they envisioned entrepreneurial office tenants that craved an urban environment for their young workers, but MacKenzie wasn't going to turn other tenants away. Apparently dreams do come true: The leasing team, which also includes Scott Wingrat, has pre-leased the 18k SF office portion to tech firms Betamore, BTS Software, and Red Owl Analytics, which will form a collaborative tech incubator there. Caves Valley had already leased the 6,000 SF ground-floor retail to M&T Bank and 7-Eleven. Jon says the idea was live/work/play for tech users or the financial services residents who already populate Federal Hill (though live/work/play for techies could totally be taken care of with one giant arcade).

The Class-A building across from Cross Street Market is the only ground-up construction in Federal Hill. Megan and Jon tell us Caves Valley development director Arsh Mirmiran began to assemble the parcel (previously private homes, a commercial building, and a parking lot) five years ago, and it broke ground in November 2010. Office leasing jump-started with a broker event a year later, and the office and retail will deliver within three months with 93 apartments and a parking garage soon to follow. Megan and Jon say this crop of tech tenants surfaced in December and January, adding that other tech users have space at 1414 Key Hwy and in McHenry Row, but that this is the largest tech cluster in Baltimore CIty South's 750k SF office submarket, where vacancy is a low 6%. Digital Harbor Real Estate Development's Ryan Scavo repped the tenants.

SEEING THE LIGHT

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