diff --git a/lib/wings/transformer_value_mapper.rb b/lib/wings/transformer_value_mapper.rb
index d67a72ebcc..0c2b29d55a 100644
--- a/lib/wings/transformer_value_mapper.rb
+++ b/lib/wings/transformer_value_mapper.rb
@@ -49,8 +49,12 @@ def self.handles?(value)
     end
 
     ##
-    # @return [RDF::Term]
+    # Valkyrie objects contain a URI string for location objects so we need
+    # to return just the string for mapping from Fedora
+    #
+    # @return [RDF::Term || String]
     def result
+      return value.id if value.is_a?(Hyrax::ControlledVocabularies::Location)
       value.to_term
     end
   end
diff --git a/spec/wings/attribute_transformer_spec.rb b/spec/wings/attribute_transformer_spec.rb
index 310014cb1f..4130e14524 100644
--- a/spec/wings/attribute_transformer_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/wings/attribute_transformer_spec.rb
@@ -5,21 +5,28 @@
 require 'wings/attribute_transformer'
 
 RSpec.describe Wings::AttributeTransformer, :active_fedora do
-  let(:id)   { 'moomin123' }
+  let(:id) { 'moomin123' }
+  let(:based_near) { Hyrax::ControlledVocabularies::Location.new("https://sws.geonames.org/4920808/") }
   let(:work) { GenericWork.new(id: id, **attributes) }
 
   let(:attributes) do
     {
       title: ['fake title', 'fake title 2'],
       contributor: ['user1'],
-      description: ['a description']
+      description: ['a description'],
+      based_near: [based_near]
     }
   end
 
-  it "transform the attributes" do
-    expect(described_class.run(work))
+  it "transforms the attributes" do
+    converted_work = described_class.run(work)
+    expect(converted_work)
       .to include title: work.title,
                   contributor: work.contributor.first,
                   description: work.description.first
+    # ensure that based_near is converted from RDF::URI to URI string during valkyrization
+    converted_based_near = Array.wrap(converted_work[:based_near]).first
+    expect(converted_based_near).to be_a(String)
+    expect(converted_based_near).to eq(work.based_near.first.id)
   end
 end