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Stonebridge Sells Last Piece Of Constitution Square For $140M

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One Constitution Square at 1275 First St. NE in NoMa

The developer that helped turn NoMa into a commercial hub has sold the last interest of its signature development.

Stonebridge Associates, the firm formerly known as StonebridgeCarras and led by developer Doug Firstenberg, has sold its ownership stake in One Constitution Square, along with equity partner Walton Street Capital, for close to $142M, the Washington Business Journal reports. Boyd Watterson Asset Management, which bought the International Trade Commission's headquarters for $119M last year, bought the 330K SF One Constitution Square building.

Stonebridge and Walton Street developed the six-building Constitution Square project over the course of a decade, culminating in the completion of Four Constitution Square in May. Stonebridge sold that building, and Three Constitution Square, to Norges Bank and MetLife for $422M in 2016, after securing a lease with the Department of Justice to fill both of those buildings.

Much like with that pair of buildings, One Constitution Square has a new buyer only after leasing up entirely — the General Services Administration signed a 70K SF lease for the DOJ at One Constitution Square earlier this year, the WBJ reported. The Peace Corps signed a 173K SF lease at the building in 2017.

In all, the complex spans 2.7M SF, including four office buildings, the Flats 130 apartment building and a Hilton Garden Inn. Since the first sale of a development in the complex in 2010, when Northwest Mutual paid $305M for Two Constitution Square, Stonebridge and Walton Street have raked in a combined $1.2B as they have sold the complex piece by piece.

Stonebridge acquired the land for the development in 2006, and kicked off construction when it signed the DOJ to a 575K SF lease at Two Constitution Square in 2008.

"At the time it was raw land, you had no idea what it was going to be," Firstenberg told Bisnow in May.