Owens & Minor sells local HQ to VDOT, will move elsewhere in the region

Owens & Minor’s Mechanicsville headquarters was built in 2006. (Courtesy Newmark)

With a move to a new headquarters in the works but under wraps, one of the region’s Fortune 500s has unloaded its Mechanicsville home base to a state agency. 

Owens & Minor, the publicly traded healthcare supply and logistics company, recently sold its 160,000-square-foot office building at 9120 Lockwood Blvd. for $33.5 million, according to Hanover County property records. The Virginia Department of Transportation was the buyer. 

Owens & Minor spokeswoman Chanel Sheffer said that by the end of the year the company will move into a new headquarters, details of which are scant. 

“Our headquarters will continue to be in the Richmond area, but we are not able to share specifics about the exact location at this time,” Sheffer said. 

The pending move and the Mechanicsville sale were prompted by the company re-evaluating its office footprint “in light of new workplace trends and the preferences of our teammates,” Sheffer said.

The sale closed on Feb. 23 and included the office building and its surrounding 75 acres. The Lockwood property has been the nerve center for Owens & Minor since it was built in 2006. It was most recently assessed by the county at $24.2 million

Local brokers Will Bradley and Mark Williford were part of the Newmark team that represented Owens & Minor in the deal. 

Owens & Minor does not specify how many employees it has locally, though it says it has more than 20,000 worldwide. In addition to the Mechanicsville office, the company has dozens of distribution centers throughout the country and “several large offices around the globe,” Sheffer said. 

It also recently had a presence in downtown Richmond. In 2017, it leased 90,000 square feet across four floors of Riverfront Plaza downtown, but shuttered that office in late 2020. 

Meanwhile, it’s unclear what VDOT’s plans are for the Mechanicsville building. Spokespeople for the agency were not available for comment by press time. 

VDOT’s current headquarters at 1401 E. Broad St. is being considered for redevelopment as the state works through a broader master planning process for Capitol Square and its 46 acres in the heart of downtown. 

The VDOT office building, along with the 26-story Monroe Building and Ferguson building at 1401 E. Grace St., is part of Capitol Square’s “Eastern Quadrant,” an 8-acre plot that the state is eyeing for a mixed-use transformation. 

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