This Week's D.C. Deal Sheet
An apartment building under construction next to Audi Field has inked its first retail tenant.
Gold’s Gym is taking 20K SF on the ground floor of Toll Brothers’ Vermeer, a 501-unit development slated to open this winter.
“With Vermeer’s luxury multifamily residences and Gold’s Gym’s renowned fitness offerings, we expect to make a significant positive impact on the development of this neighborhood,” Matthew Anderson, director of development and construction for Toll Brothers Apartment Living in the Mid-Atlantic region, said in a press release Wednesday.
The 13-story property at 113 Potomac Ave. SW, which began construction in 2022, has 37K SF of ground-floor retail. It is also planned to include a resident lounge and game room, a penthouse-level fitness center, a rooftop pool, a private dining room, coworking spaces and two courtyards.
Gold's Gym is expected to open in 2025. It will be the company's 22nd location and sixth in D.C.
CBRE’s Jared Meier and Taylor Hayes, along with Newmark Group’s Edwin M. Clark, III, brokered the deal with collaboration from the project’s joint venture partner: CrossHarbor Capital Partners.
LEASES
An office building a block from the White House at 800 Connecticut Ave. NW has inked three new tenants totaling 13K SF. The 128K SF property signed law firm Boyden Gray for 6K SF, insurance agency Applied Underwriters for 4K SF and Suntory Global Spirits for 3K SF.
Donohoe Cos., which leases the property in conjunction with Stoladi Property Group, posted the news on LinkedIn Thursday. Donohoe’s Bob Hines, Ethan Abrams, Don Konz, Bob Donohoe and Stoladi’s Jim Stokes represented the landlord. Colliers represented Boyden Gray, and CBRE represented Applied Underwriters and Suntory Global Spirits.
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The D.C. government inked a renewal and expansion at 64 New York Ave. NE in NoMa. The District’s Department of Human Services and the Department of Behavioral Health renewed their joint lease for 326K SF, the vast majority of the 356K SF office building owned by Boyd Watterson Asset Management. The renewal came with an agreement to take a total 334K SF with the completion of a renovation, expected by January 2028, according to lease documents obtained by Bisnow.
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A Chicago-based fire protection company tripled its footprint at DSC Partners’ Metro Park in Rockville. Fire & Risk Alliance is taking 16K SF for its renewal at 7620 Standish Place. KLNB, which represented the landlord, announced the news. Metro Park is a four-building office portfolio totalling 161K SF. KLNB’s Ken Fellows, Robert Pugh and Keiry Martinez represented DSC Partners.
MILESTONES
Douglas Development filed a Planned Unit Development application for a large warehouse that it’s planning to build next to the National Arboretum at a site long planned for a mixed-use district, UrbanTurf first reported. The D.C.-based developer is planning to build a 186K SF warehouse and 200 parking spaces at the intersection of New York and Montana avenues and Bladensburg Road NE. The 16-acre triangular site had been planned for a 1.5M SF retail, hospitality and residential district. The developer presented the plans to pivot to the warehouse at an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting in May.
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A new Gaithersburg-based multifamily real estate company launched this month. Pratum Cos. is the combination of several firms — Presidential Service Industries, Edgewood Management Corporation and FCRE Compliance and Leasing — combined by Pratum’s founding CEO Shah Alam. The new company manages over 150 multifamily communities totaling north of 15,000 units across eight states in the mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic regions, including D.C.
The combination brings together more than 500 employees under one roof. Steve Lainez will serve as president of Pratum’s commercial cleaning division, and Adriana Ortega Diaz will be president of the compliance and leasing consulting division. Alam was most recently a managing partner of New York-based vertically integrated real estate firm Fairstead, according to his LinkedIn profile.
PERSONNEL
Architecture firm Perkins & Will is bringing on Damon Sheppard to lead its D.C. studio as managing director. Sheppard is replacing Chris Morrison, who helmed the office for a decade and is now returning to practice architecture full time, the firm announced. Sheppard comes from HOK, where he worked for 12 years, most recently serving as principal and a regional leader of HOK’s science and technology practice. As a Howard University alumnus, Sheppard has called D.C. home for the past three decades.
Sheppard has worked on projects including a historic renovation of educational lab spaces and an interior fit-out of a private life sciences research facility, according to the release. His clients have included Morgan State University, The George Washington University, Georgetown University, the National Institutes of Health and Sanofi.
