UMD, COPT Break Ground on New Office Building in Discovery District

Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE: OFC) (COPT), in partnership with the University of Maryland (UMD), broke ground on a new 105,000-square-foot office building at 4600 River Road today. The building is the latest addition to UMD’s Discovery District, the epicenter of academic, research and economic development in Greater College Park.

The fourth building in the joint venture partnership between COPT and UMD, the 4600 River Road building, will have 25,000- square- foot floor plates, four stories of Class A office space, and onsite parking. The building will be minutes away from the Green Line Metro station and a future Purple Line station.

Cybrary, a technology education company that provides free and low-cost technology education for individuals and organizations, will be the anchor tenant in the new building, occupying the top floor (25,000 square feet). The company currently has 11,000 square feet of space in COPT’s neighboring building at 5801 University Research Court, and plans to move to 4600 River Road during 2020.

”We are very pleased to participate in this, our fourth development with UMD. Clearly, UMD is a leading force of progress in creating technology opportunities in the state of Maryland. This development enriches the university, the College Park community and the entire state of Maryland, stated Paul Adkins, COPT’s Chief Operating Officer.”

The public-private partnership between the university and its private partners encompasses 150 acres dedicated to research and innovation. COPT’s existing portfolio within College Park consists of three buildings, which total 320,000 square feet of Class-A office space. COPT’s current tenants in the Discovery District include federal agencies, the University of Maryland, and private technology and cyber companies.

“Our partnership with COPT has provided a home for dozens of innovative companies and organizations right here in Greater College Park,” stated Ken Ulman, Chief Strategy Officer, UMD. “We are working hard to make College Park the greatest college town it can be, and that involves attracting and retaining high caliber companies in our community. The Discovery District has access to a highly educated workforce pipeline and numerous research partnerships with UMD’s premier students and faculty.”

The Discovery District is largely made up of leading research organizations, and features a pop-up park with food trucks, creative seating areas, trails and art installations, with access to the amenities of the new Riverdale Park Station. The location, which contains about 1.5 million square feet of office and flex research and development space, plans to expand to over 3 million square feet of office space in the next several years.

About the University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park is the state's flagship university and one of the nation's preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 40,000 students,10,000 faculty and staff, and 280 academic programs. As one of the nation’s top producers of Fulbright scholars, its faculty includes two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners and 58 members of the national academies. The institution has a $1.9 billion operating budget and secures $514 million annually in external research funding. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit www.umd.edu.

About COPT
COPT is a REIT that owns, manages, leases, develops and selectively acquires office and data center properties in locations that support the United States Government and its contractors, most of whom are engaged in national security, defense and information technology (“IT”) related activities servicing what it believes are growing, durable, priority missions (“Defense/IT Locations”). The Company also owns a portfolio of office properties located in select urban/urban-like submarkets in the Greater Washington, DC/Baltimore region with durable Class-A office fundamentals and characteristics (“Regional Office Properties”). As of March 31, 2019, the Company derived 89% of its core portfolio annualized revenue from Defense/IT Locations and 11% from its Regional Office Properties. As of the same date and including six buildings owned through an unconsolidated joint venture, COPT’s core portfolio of 163 office and data center shell properties encompassed 18.2 million square feet and was 93.7% leased; the Company also owned one wholesale data center with a critical load of 19.25 megawatts.