Fannie Mae is planning to pull out of the Monument IV building at 12900 Worldgate Drive in Herndon come June, casting another shadow over the building after its mortgage was transferred to a special servicer fearing just that possibility last spring.
Fannie has about 400 employees in the 228,425-square-foot building and plans to relocate those workers to other regional offices in D.C. and Northern Virginia.
It previously leased all of Monument IV but cut back its space to about 106,000 square feet last year.
Fannie spokesman Andrew Wilson said Fannie has no plans to lay off employees and that the decision to withdraw from Monument IV was made strictly to move workers into more efficient space.
“It’s the normal part of business for Fannie Mae,” Wilson said. Based in D.C., Fannie leases space in other buildings in Nortnern Virginia including other sites in Herndon and Reston.
The loss of rental income from Fannie will present a new challenge for Monument IV owner MIVPO LLC. MIVPO is a single-purpose entity created to own Monument IV. It, in turn, is owned by LaSalle Property Fund, a real estate fund controlled by LaSalle Investment Management Inc.
LaSalle spokeswoman Stefanie Murphy said the company has retained Cassidy Turley to market the space and that a number of prospective tenants have expressed an interest.
“We are having very good activity in terms of re-leasing the space, it’s doing very well,” she said.
MIVPO still owes about $35 million and in August 2011 negotiated a two-year extension on the debt, which is now slated to mature in September 2013, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents. Murphy said the note is no longer with the special servicer.
