Piedmont Office Realty Trust announced Monday that it has purchased the Meridian Crossings office complex in Richfield for $65.6 million.

The complex sits on about 9.5 acres and includes two eight-story buildings-One & Two Meridian Crossings-with a total of 383,882 square feet. Together, the buildings are 96 percent leased with most of that space being leased to Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp through 2023.

In February, U.S. Bancorp signed a lease and announced that it was relocating 1,600 employees to the Meridian Crossings complex from its office space on Shepard Road in St. Paul.

The buildings were purchased from the Ohio STRS (State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio). Brad Pittman, Piedmont's director of capital markets, represented the company in the transaction.

“We are pleased to add these quality office properties with such a notable tenant as U.S. Bancorp to our portfolio,” Pittman said in a statement. “Minneapolis is a target opportunistic market for Piedmont, and this transaction provides us optimism that additional accretive investments may be available in quality locations.”

Piedmont also announced Monday that it closed on Suwanee Gateway One, a five-story, 142,427-square-foot building located in Atlanta.

Atlanta-based Piedmont Office Realty Trust is a public real estate investment trust specializing in Class-A office properties.

-Melissa Loth