Woodmark, Perkins, and "Players"
We visited the principals of Woodmark Real Estate Servicesrecently in their Jefferson Court digs in G-Town, and, man, don't they look like they stepped out of the pages of an annual report? That's because they are distinguished—all veterans of CB in the early 80s—yet they've become real entrepreneurs. Ed Beanblossom, seated front left, founded them as a property management firm in 1995, and three years later lured friends Alex Green, Geoff Kieffer, and Roy Ayers to join him expanding into acquisitions (like 1801 K a few years back) and landlord and tenant rep. A year ago they teamed with huge Urban Retail of Chicago, the largest third party mall manager in America (Mazza, Georgetown Park here) to create Urban Woodmark in the mid-Atlantic. Urban can get them into big institutionals like Calpers for landlord work, and they can give Urban a presence here in office management.
Perkins + Will last week hosted the opening of a 25k SF U.S. Green Building Council office it designed at 1800 Mass. Since that's the group in charge of LEED certifications, it had to get it right, and created a showcase with cork flooring in conference rooms, salvaged wood timbers, and enhanced daylight to reduce electrical consumption. Above, representatives from engineer Stantec—Zorica Gombac on the left and Randy Pool on the right—join Perkins' Jeffrey Gay, Cathy Falwell, and Luther Geisler. The wooden bars behind are made of reclaimed Douglas fir.
Greats and Near Great. Only weeks on the job, Elliott Bisnow, son of this publisher, tagged along last Saturday evening to the owner's box at Verizon Center and here chats up Cal Ripken and Ted Leonsis about the tax advantages of 1031 exchanges. All right, maybe they were just talking sports. But Ted has actually done something quite amazing in real estate. He put the Caps practice rink on top of a 7-story parking garage in Ballston, threw open the doors to the community to use the iceplex, and now has pepped up the area more than ever…and won new converts to hockey.
