Richard Newman, Arent Fox

Richard majored in theater at NYU, and these days contributes to the arts by heading to the theater 3-4 nights a week, and during the day often representing the same cultural institutions in real estate finance, with a focus on tax advantaged financing, along with acquisition, disposition and leasing. Clients have included the Smithsonian, National Geographic, The Phillips Collection, Corcoran, Ford's Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage (where he's on the board) and Planned Parenthood. He's known for navigating complicated public-private partnerships, often with the DC government, and largely representing end users. He's advising DC United on developing a new soccer stadium in Southeast. Recently, he did a series of interrelated deals for the Association of American Medical Colleges that involved selling two buildings in the West End, relocating historic buildings, and building and moving into a new building on the East End. In July, he closed a $40M deal to consolidate Georgetown Day School's three schools into one campus, through land purchases from Safeway and a Volvo and a Volkswagen dealership. Further back, he did the financing for the Verizon Center. In college, when Richard became interested in urban planning, a prof told him to figure out how to pay for the ideas planners come up with instead--so he studied finance and went to law school (Case Western). After a HUD internship, he worked for a boutique HUD practice doing low-income housing work and government contracts. He's been with Arent Fox for 20 years. In his spare time, he collects contemporary art--Washington Color Field is a favorite style.