A real estate investment trust that operates in the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland markets has acquired a data center in Ashburn, Va. The data center is part of a three-building corporate campus called Ashburn Center that was sold for $14 million.

First Potomac Realty Trust - the buyer - said in a statement that the new 194,000 square foot facility was 45 percent occupied by three tenants that specialize in technology and data storage. The trust bought the property from MRP Realty, a Washington, D.C.-based property acquisition, development and management company.

The purchase price was heavily discounted and the seller "will be paid additional consideration if certain returns are achieved over the next five years," according to the First Potomac statement.

Northern Virginia, the region where the said property is located, has a large and active data center market. Most recently, Digital Realty Trust (First Potomac's large San Francisco-based competitor) announced an acquisition of two data centers and an empty parcel in Ashburn and in Sterling.

Other companies that have data centers in northern Virginia include Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Equinix and Savvis, among others.

First Potomac Realty Trust's portfolio currently consists of about 12 million square feet of real estate. The company says that its biggest customer is the US federal government. Contracts with federal agencies bring in about 20 percent of the trust's total revenue.