Finmarc in a Frenzy

Led by two guys who went to kindergarten together, Finmarc Management is quietly on a buying spree. (They took the sharing lesson very seriously.) And as one of its leaders tells us, the bash ain't over yet.

This morning, Finmarc principal Marc Solomon (right, who heads up the Bethesda-based firm with partners David Fink, pictured, and Neil Markus) told us his firm's just-announced purchase of the 292k SF Wildewood Shopping Center in St. Mary's County, MD marks $515M in either acquisitions or dispositions over the past 30 months. What's more, Marc says the firm is under contract on $20-plus-million worth of deals (in Maryland and Northern Virginia, he adds) that'll close by the end of the year. Finmarc's goal is to create value through its acquisitions, whether it's a value-add or core deal, Marc tells us. Growing Finmarc's 5M SF portfolio is the goal. "We really are not sellers," he says, though the wave of capital to the region has caused the firm to exit a few assets recently. Other deals have included buying Waterfront Station in Alexandria as well as the purchase of the former AXA Luxury Suites hotel in the RB Corridor.

Here's Wildewood, anchored by Belk, which has welcomed Bed Bath & Beyond and DSW as big-box tenants this year. You might not find a non-family firm that's been connected as long as Marc and David have: the two have been friends since going to kindergarten together in Montgomery County, and were school mates all the way through college at UMD. Though Finmarc's acquisition territory stretches from the Philadelphia area through Richmond, finding opportunities to reinvest in the community they grew up in remains important to Marc and David. "We're very bullish on the metro Washington market, since there's so much education and growth."