Store Capital Buys Another Private School Campus

After its second private school building acquisition in a matter of weeks, what’s in store for Store Capital next?

The Arizona-based real estate investment trust acquired the property at 8000 Jones Branch Drive in Tysons, Virginia, for $103 million, the Washington Business Journal reported. The deal for the 244,000-square-foot property breaks down to $422 per square foot.

Spring Education Group sold the office campus to an affiliate of Store. A subsidiary of Spring, Basis Independent Schools, has leased the space to serve as a private school since 2016, though it’s unclear if that arrangement will continue following the transaction.

Interestingly, Store paid a handsome premium to acquire the three-story building, at least compared to its most recent assessment. Last year, Fairfax County assessed the property at $53.4 million, slightly more than half of what it ultimately sold for.

Store did not respond to a request for comment from the publication.

The building traded hands numerous times in the last dozen or so years. Developer West-Ground Management sold its project to StonebridgeCarras and Walton Street Capital LLC for $28.5 million in 2010. The partners sold it five years later to EPR Properties for $30 million, before Spring scooped it up for $48.6 million in 2021.

The arrival of Store may not have been a surprise to those who saw a similar transaction unfold last month. In San Jose, the company purchased a private school building for $62.6 million.

Spring, which co-owned the campus used for the Basis Independent Silicon Valley Upper School, was one of the sellers in the San Jose deal as well. A big difference in the two deals is that the San Jose transaction came in under both the previous 2020 sale price and the most recent assessed value.

In 2023, Store bought a building in Milpitas, California, home to a Stratford School location, for $25.8 million; Stratford School is another private school brand of Spring Education Group.

Store Capital operates in a niche field, specializing in buying properties that have one tenant and leasing them back to the occupant; “Store” stands for “Single Tenant Operational Real Estate.”

— Holden Walter-Warner