One Day, Two Big Events
Despite the rain yesterday, the DC real estate community was out in full force all day long. We darted around town to capture the action.
Last night, we stopped by Penn Social to join over 400 for the second annual PUB Games benefiting the SED Center, a nonprofit creating educational programs for low-income families in the region. Teams—like this decked-out troop from Republic Properties—arrived in uniform from across DC real estate to compete in cornhole, ping pong, and Jenga, among others.
Here's SED Center board member Todd Rich of JBG with HFF's Walter Coker, EagleBank's Tony Marquez, and Mill Creek's Sean Caldwell. Todd tells us the event—the SED Center's biggest fundraiser of the year—was expected to raise over $100k.
Here's the Wingate Hughes team and its inspired getup: Natalie Hnatiw, Amy Shavelson, Gavin Daniels, Gavin Bowie, James Halliburton (not wanting to miss a minute of the trivia game the team was in), and Ali Wehr.
Penn Social's next-door neighbor DLA Piper even opened up its lobby for the cornhole and ping-pong.
Manning the registration table were SED Center board member Derek Gallardo of HITT, Boston Properties' Damon Mock, and the AARP Foundation's Karen Gallardo.
Earlier in the day, we headed to the Southwest Waterfront as The Wharf was officially kicked off in one DC's biggest-ever groundbreakings. (Unless you count the rebuilding needed after the movie Independence Day. Which we do.) Here's The Wharf's dream team looking on as PN Hoffman CEO Monty Hoffman welcomes the standing-room-only crowd: Perkins Eastman design whiz Stan Eckstut, 9:30 Club owner Seth Hurwitz, ER Bacon CEO Elinor Bacon, Clark Construction CEO Brian Abt, Paramount Title's Ben Soto, Oliver Carr Jr., Triden Development's Michael Jones, Madison Marquette's David Brainerd and Dan McCahan, and Mayor Gray. Monty says Elinor was the first one to encourage him to go after the city's RFP for the site in 2005; his response? "Absolutely not."
With the Democratic primary less than two weeks away, this trio couldn't miss out on an opportunity to stump in front of a big crowd. Council members Tommy Wells, Jack Evans, and Muriel Bowser—as well as fellow candidate Mayor Gray—all hit the podium. The Wharf sits in Tommy's Ward 6 district.
After the almost two-hour ceremony, we found Seth Hurwitz—gearing up to operate The Wharf's 6,000-seat music venue—with none other than Monty Hoffman's dad, Don.
Monty and co pulled out all the stops, from confetti to the fountain over his shoulder.
It wouldn't be a big DC event without Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins and entrepreneur Mark Ein. Victor says The Wharf represents the 68th and largest project his office has cut the ribbon on since coming on board three years ago—those projects represent $6.8B in total investment. The groundbreaking actually took place on Kastles Stadium's multi-colored court, and Monty says he and the development partners hope to place a plaque on site honoring the team's record-breaking winning streak. (Maybe it'll distract the line judges, and a few more calls will go our way.)
