Trio Of Investors Buys NoMa Apartment Building For $108M
A 346-unit NoMa apartment building with a 561-gallon exotic saltwater aquarium in its lobby has a new owner.
The Belgard, a 2018 property at 33 N St. NE, just sold to a trio of investors for $107.75M, Bisnow can first report. The price works out to just over $311K per unit.
Foulger Pratt acquired the property along with New York-based Tryline Capital and an undisclosed institutional investor in a deal that closed on Thursday, Foulger Pratt Managing Director Joe Clauser told Bisnow. The transaction hadn't appeared in D.C. deeds records before publication. Foulger Pratt is the sponsor, Clauser said.
Atlanta-based Wood Partners and CBRE Investment Management sold the building just south of New York Avenue and the site planned as the future headquarters for the Securities and Exchange Commission.
CBRE Investment Management declined to comment, and Wood Partners didn't respond to requests for comment.
Clauser said the volatility of interest rates over the past year, combined with the fact that the property was subject to the city’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, meaning it would take some time to close, made potential buyers wary about jumping aboard.
That meant the partnership was able to get a “rock bottom” price, he said.
“It became so cheap on a price-per-pound basis that we were willing to take the interest rate risk,” Clauser told Bisnow.
Multifamily sales in the D.C. region averaged $352K per unit in the first half of the year, according to Berkadia, which tracked 10 sales over $50M.
“We know what it costs to build this type of product, and it's substantially more — close to double — what our acquisition basis is in this property,” he added.
Foulger Pratt and its partners had the property under agreement since November, but it just closed because of the lengthy TOPA process, Clauser said.
The partnership secured a Fannie Mae loan through Capital One Bank at a 5.72% interest rate.
The Belgard’s ground-floor retail is fully leased to Simona Cafe and pizzeria Menomale NoMa. Clauser said the residential portion of the property is leased in the “high 90s” percent range.
In NoMa, Foulger Pratt also owns the 356-unit Press House Apartments at 331 N St. NE and a 52K SF adaptive reuse office and retail building next door. The Potomac-based developer owns 15M SF of commercial, office, multifamily and retail properties nationwide.
Although Tryline Capital is based in New York, its portfolio includes several D.C.-area properties. It went in with Bernstein Management Corp. on a 1920s-era, 276-unit apartment building in Adams Morgan this spring. Tryline also owns the 326-unit Carlyle Place Apartments in Alexandria, according to its website.
